Bacteria talk to each other with chemicals. They do so for a host of reasons, some of them hard to understand unless you are another bacterium (or a dedicated bacteriologist), but one of the most straightforward is demonstrated by Bacillus subtilis.
If B. subtilis individuals are growing in a food-poor area, they release chemicals into their surroundings. These essentially tell their neighbours: “There’s not much food here, so clear off or we’ll both starve.”
In response to these chemical messages, the other bacteria set themselves up further away, completely changing the shape of the colony.
– from the New Scientist article ‘Why microbes are smarter than you thought’.
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