This essay considers the political economy of transnational scientific research based on global collection of biota for laboratory manipulation, focusing on a program to develop pest-resistant wheat using fungal endophytes common in a range of wild but closely related grasses. This effort extends long-standing efforts to commoditize living substances of increasing scope and complexity, and it is supported by efforts to collect and preserve biological diversity. The essay explores how imperatives of capital shape biodiversity as a policy category and determine which forms of life are saved, materially altering our records of life on earth. These newly legible and malleable organisms become more perfect commodities, suitable for standardization and transmutation into finance capital. Yet endophytes are also of interest in part because of their resistance to such control, throwing into sharp relief the reductive imperatives of commoditization while also provoking new ways of justifying capital accumulation and flow. This essay questions the extent to which histories of capitalism and science as conjoined projects rooted in the biological species concept can explain contemporary practices of biodiversity preservation and the microbiological research they support. Microbiological research provides new renderings of life on earth that may challenge or reconfigure metaphors and practices common to capitalism and science.

中文翻译：

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国际农业生物多样性保护中的微生物学和资本的必要性

本文考虑了基于用于实验室操作的全球生物群收集的跨国科学研究的政治经济学，重点关注使用在一系列野生但密切相关的草中常见的真菌内生菌开发抗虫小麦的计划。这项努力扩展了将范围和复杂性不断增加的生物物质商品化的长期努力，并得到了收集和保护生物多样性努力的支持。这篇文章探讨了资本的必要性如何将生物多样性塑造为一个政策类别，并决定拯救哪些生命形式，从而实质性地改变我们在地球上的生命记录。这些新的可读可塑性有机体成为更完美的商品，适合标准化和转化为金融资本。然而，内生菌也引起了人们的兴趣，部分原因是它们对这种控制有抵抗力，它们使商品化的减少必要性大为缓解，同时也激发了证明资本积累和流动正当性的新方法。本文质疑资本主义和科学的历史作为植根于生物物种概念的联合项目在多大程度上可以解释当代生物多样性保护实践及其支持的微生物研究。微生物研究为地球上的生命提供了新的诠释，可能会挑战或重新配置资本主义和科学常见的隐喻和实践。本文质疑资本主义和科学的历史作为植根于生物物种概念的联合项目在多大程度上可以解释当代生物多样性保护实践及其支持的微生物研究。微生物研究为地球上的生命提供了新的诠释，可能会挑战或重新配置资本主义和科学常见的隐喻和实践。本文质疑资本主义和科学的历史作为植根于生物物种概念的联合项目在多大程度上可以解释当代生物多样性保护实践及其支持的微生物研究。微生物研究为地球上的生命提供了新的渲染，可能会挑战或重新配置资本主义和科学常见的隐喻和实践。