Food, environmental, and medical microbiologists begin a dialogue to understand microbial communities and their interactions within and between different environments. The effort reflects the growing recognition that focusing on single pathogens one by one was not a very effective approach to improving food safety. They cover circulation and dynamics among microbial ecosystems, interactions and modifications within microbial ecosystems, antibiotic resistance, model organisms, and emerging tools and issues. Among the topics are natural microbial ecosystems and their progression in fresh foods, molecular mechanisms of microbial survival in foods, anti-microbial resistance in food-borne pathogens, the superbug Staphylococcus aureus, and spatial dynamics of interactions in biofilms and guts. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)