Pass the Leftovers Before the Microbes Chow Down

Thanksgiving to New Year's is a holiday season of one feast after another, followed by a smorgasbord of leftovers.

Don't dally. You're not the only one eyeing the best of what's left. There are microbes in the chow line.

A Georgia Tech study reports microbes act as top-tier competitors in the food chain — and if you give them a chance, they'll literally cause a stink.

In the journal Ecology, Tech biologist Mark Hay and colleagues explain that microbes make rotting food stink so they can compete with bigger predators that would otherwise scavenge the food source.

Microbes "are not passively waiting" for upper levels of the food chain to pass down the leftovers, Hay said. "They are also trying to grab what they can at the start."

In a series of experiments the team performed with crabs and a variety of fresh, rotting and aged fish, the results suggested that it is the microbe-produced chemicals in decaying fish that cause the crabs to avoid it.

Microbes use chemical warfare, researchers said. Microbes are rotting fruits, molding seeds and spoiling meat to make these foods repugnant.

These interactions happen daily in our refrigerators, the researchers said. "When we throw away the fuzzy strawberries or the moldy steak, it's because the microbes have won."