Nature Reviews Microbiology just published a new Research Highlight (http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v13/n12/full/nrmicro3588.html) on a recent Nature paper which identified a physiological role for bacterial ion channels; it shows that they can propagate electrical signals throughout biofilms in a long-range process that coordinates the metabolic responses of the microbial community.

The Nature paper is entitled Ion channels enable electrical communication in bacterial communities and can be found at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v527/n7576/fu...