Geek Alert! The Microbiome of the Bed Bug!

For all of you science geeks, here’s an interesting research paper on the mircobiome of the bed bug. (“Microbiome” refers to the community of microorganisms which live on and in an animal.)

It turns out 97% of the microbial community on bed bugs consists of two proteobacteria, one of which apparently aids in fertility through producing B vitamins.

This is the first extensive study of the bed bug’s microbiome, and it’s telling that such in depth research is only now coming out.

For many decades, bed bugs were not much of a problem, and there were few scientific studies done on them.

But over the last several years, there has been a dramatic resurgence in bed bugs, and consequently, scientists are more and more focusing their studies on them. The fact that such exhaustive research like this study is coming out is very suggestive of how serious the problem has become.

Posted by Andrew Havlis