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Microbial ecology is the study of the interactions of microorganisms with their environment, each other, and plant and animal species. It includes the study of symbioses, biogeochemical cycles and the interaction of microbes with anthropogenic effects such as pollution and climate change.
The climate-dependency of microbial carbon use efficiency thermal sensitivity is demonstrated in a forest transect experiment, with implications for soil carbon feedbacks to climate warming.
In the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, wetland degradation leads to changes in soil properties and microbial communities that reduce the abundance of forage plants, according to an analysis of field vegetation and soil survey data, bioinformatics, and statistical analysis.
Fluid flow reduces bacterial growth and colonization on surfaces, which has been explained by increased cell detachment. However, Hubert et al. show that the reduction in population growth is due not only to cell detachment but also to reduced cell division rate, suggesting that bacteria can respond to fluid flow by entering a growth arrest state and enhancing their adhesion to surfaces.
From metagenomic sequencing of coastal soils along a salinity gradient, this study shows contrasting eco-evolutionary strategies for relieving carbon limitation under salt stress in bacteria and archaea. The findings suggest that bacteria conserve energy through genome streamlining when facing salt stress, while archaea invest in carbon-acquisition pathways to broaden their resource usage.
In this study, Carrasco Flores et al. report that the bacterium Mycetocola lacteus protects the microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii from the antagonistic activity of Pseudomonas protegens.
Multidisciplinary culture-dependent and -independent techniques elucidate the unique microbial nitrogen cycle in nutrient-poor coastal Antarctica soils and reveal the contribution of novel key microbes to their nitrogen budget.
The clinical translation of therapeutics on the basis of human gut microorganisms is hampered by our limited knowledge of how microbes survive and adapt to fluctuating conditions in the gut. The systematic exploration of gut microbiome survival strategies and trade-offs will thus enable the design of more efficient microbiome-based interventions.
Metatranscriptomic data from more than 2,000 mosquitoes of 81 species show that the composition of mosquito viral communities is determined more by host phylogeny than by climate and land-use factors, which will help to inform arbovirus surveillance.
Characterizing bacterial responses to mixtures of chemical pollutants reveals interactive effects among pollutants. Our study highlights the predictability and resilience of microbial responses to complex mixtures of pollutants, offering the potential for improvements in ecotoxicological assessments.