A January paper published onilne in the Proceedings of the National Acadamy of Science (PNAS) is descibed by an article in Labmanager .com as Microbes Buy Low and Sell High. This offers more justification for my long held opinion that Economics is a sub-discipline of Ecology. Many other biologists have come to the same conclusion but as I found out the hard way if your boss is a PhD Economist that opinon can be hazardous to one's job perfomance reviews.
The article itself is behind a paywall at http://www.pnas.org/.... This descibes an extension of biological market theory often used to model and predict cooperative behavior among separate species to include organisms like bacteria and fungi not generally thought of as having cognitive ability. Most of the aspects of trading are seen such as selective partnerships, treating one partner differently from others, identification and response to fluctuating availability of the traded commodities, and aspects of price, quality, and quantity. Last quote "So much for the egos of Wall Street Traders".
More on the workshop that inspired this paper can be be found here.