This special issue “Environmental Microbiology” encompasses 18 contributions, either original articles or reviews, which highlight diverse approaches for understanding function, diversity, adaptation and interactions of microorganisms in their e mostly anthropic e environments. All these studies were funded by the EC2CO program (Continental and Costal Ecospheres; http://www.insu.cnrs.fr/co/actions-sur-projets/ ec2co), co-ordinated by National Institute for Earth Sciences and Astronomy (INSU, France) at National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS, France) which must be acknowledged for their stimulating support to the environmental microbiology research community. This issue is not an exhaustive presentation of challenges in environmental microbiology, but it points out some key-questions and strategies for understanding the role of microbes in the environments and their ecological services in anthropic environments. It is clear that one of the remaining challenges in environmental microbiology is to connect the infinite diversity and the multitude of environmentally relevant processes with the diverse taxonomic groups that carry them out. In the near future, development of high-throughput methods for analysis of physico-chemical characteristics of environments and structure and function of microbial populations will help microbiologists to understand complexity in the microbial world. Moreover, several efforts have to be done to elucidate the role of the underestimated players that are viruses and especially bacterial viruses. For
example in marine ecosystem, it is estimated that viruses are responsible for the death of approximately 20% of the prokaryotic biomass per day. It is increasingly proposed that
these possible major players affect nutrient cycles as well as the structure of the microbial communities. They might also provide a means of transfer of genetic elements between microbes in this environment. Studies on the horizontal transfer of genes would bring responses on questions related to the maintenance of biodiversity and to the adaptation of organisms to changing environmental conditions. Finally, the characterization of the relevant scale at which a process
operates is of great importance and has strong impact on the strategy of sampling procedure, incubation duration and/or conditions, analytical techniques for the quantification of
processes and the determination of community structure and function. Environmental microbiologists have to interact with biogeochemists and modelers to acquire a good understanding of relevant spatial and temporal scale ranges over which microbiologically mediated processes occur. The challenges for environmental microbiologists will undoubtedly increase as the requests for microbiological indicators of global change become more and more important as the anthropization of Earth ecosystems increases.
This special issue “Environmental Microbiology” encompasses 18 contributions, either original articles or reviews, which highlight diverse approaches for understanding function, diversity, adaptation and interactions of microorganisms in their e mostly anthropic e environments. All these studies were funded by the EC2CO program (Continental and Costal Ecospheres; http://www.insu.cnrs.fr/co/actions-sur-projets/ ec2co), co-ordinated by National Institute for Earth Sciences and Astronomy (INSU, France) at National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS, France) which must be acknowledged for their stimulating support to the environmental microbiology research community. This issue is not an exhaustive presentation of challenges in environmental microbiology, but it points out some key-questions and strategies for understanding the role of microbes in the environments and their ecological services in anthropic environments. It is clear that one of the remaining challenges in environmental microbiology is to connect the infinite diversity and the multitude of environmentally relevant processes with the diverse taxonomic groups that carry them out. In the near future, development of high-throughput methods for analysis of physico-chemical characteristics of environments and structure and function of microbial populations will help microbiologists to understand complexity in the microbial world. Moreover, several efforts have to be done to elucidate the role of the underestimated players that are viruses and especially bacterial viruses. Forexample in marine ecosystem, it is estimated that viruses are responsible for the death of approximately 20% of the prokaryotic biomass per day. It is increasingly proposed thatthese possible major players affect nutrient cycles as well as the structure of the microbial communities. They might also provide a means of transfer of genetic elements between microbes in this environment. Studies on the horizontal transfer of genes would bring responses on questions related to the maintenance of biodiversity and to the adaptation of organisms to changing environmental conditions. Finally, the characterization of the relevant scale at which a processoperates is of great importance and has strong impact on the strategy of sampling procedure, incubation duration and/or conditions, analytical techniques for the quantification ofprocesses and the determination of community structure and function. Environmental microbiologists have to interact with biogeochemists and modelers to acquire a good understanding of relevant spatial and temporal scale ranges over which microbiologically mediated processes occur. The challenges for environmental microbiologists will undoubtedly increase as the requests for microbiological indicators of global change become more and more important as the anthropization of Earth ecosystems increases.
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