Microbial ecology

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Microbial ecology

Microbial ecology is the relationship of microorganism

Microorganism

A microorganism or microbe is an organism that is microscopic . The study of microorganisms is called microbiology, a subject that began with Anton van Leeuwenhoek's discovery of microorganisms in 1675, using a microscope of his own design....
s with one another and with their environment. It concerns the three major domains

Domain (biology)

In Biology taxonomy, a domain is the highest taxonomic rank of organisms, higher than a Kingdom . According to the three-domain system of Carl Woese, introduced in 1990, the Tree of life consists of three domains: Archaea, Bacteria and Eukaryota....
of life — Eukaryota

Eukaryote

Animals, plants, fungus, and protists are eukaryotes , organisms whose Cell are organized into complex structures enclosed within Cell membrane....
, Archaea

Archaea

The Archaea are a group of single-celled microorganisms. A single individual or species from this domain is called an archaeon . Archaea, like bacteria, are prokaryotic....
, and Bacteria

Bacteria

Virus

A virus is a Optical microscope#Limitations of light microscopes infectious agent that is unable to grow or reproduce outside a host cell . Viruses infect all cellular life....
es. Microorganisms, by their omnipresence, impact the entire biosphere

Biosphere

The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. From the broadest Geophysiology point of view, the biosphere is the global ecology system integrating all living beings and their relationships, including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and Earth's atmosphere....
. They are present in virtually all of our planet's environments, including some of the most extreme, from acidic lakes to the deepest ocean, and from frozen environments to hydrothermal vents.

Microbes, especially bacteria, often engage in symbiotic

Symbiosis

The term symbiosis commonly describes close and often long-term interactions between different biological species. The term was first used in 1879 by the Germany mycology Heinrich Anton de Bary, who defined it as "the living together of unlike organisms"....
relationships (either positive or negative) with other organisms, and these relationships affect the ecosystem.

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Encyclopedia

Microbial ecology is the relationship of microorganism

Microorganism

Domain (biology)

Eukaryote

Animals, plants, fungus, and protists are eukaryotes , organisms whose Cell are organized into complex structures enclosed within Cell membrane....
, Archaea

Archaea

The Archaea are a group of single-celled microorganisms. A single individual or species from this domain is called an archaeon . Archaea, like bacteria, are prokaryotic....
, and Bacteria

Bacteria

Virus

Biosphere

Symbiosis

Photosynthesis

File:Seawifs global biosphere.jpgPhotosynthesis is a metabolic pathway that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight....
. Chloroplasts are considered to be endosymbiotic cyanobacteria

Cyanobacteria

Cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, blue-green bacteria or Cyanophyta, is a phylum of bacteria that obtain their energy through photosynthesis....
, a group of bacteria

Bacteria

The Bacteria are a large group of unicellular microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals....
that are thought to be the origins of aerobic photosynthesis. Some theories state that this invention coincides with a major shift in the early earth's atmosphere, from a reducing atmosphere to an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Some theories go as far as saying that this shift in the balance of gasses might have triggered a global ice-age known as the Snowball Earth

Snowball Earth

Snowball Earth refers to hypotheses regarding paleoclimate global-scale glaciation, claiming that the Earth's surface was nearly or entirely frozen at some points in its past....
.

They are the backbone of all ecosystem

Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical factors of the environment....
s, but even more so in the zones where light cannot approach and thus photosynthesis cannot be the basic means to collect energy. In such zones, chemosynthetic microbes provide energy and carbon

Carbon

Carbon is a chemical element with chemical symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalence?making four electrons available to form covalent bond chemical bonds....
to the other organism

Organism

In biology, an organism is any life thing . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimulus , reproduction, growth and developmental biology, and maintenance of homeostasis as a stable whole....
s.

Other microbes are decomposer

Decomposer

Decomposers are organisms that consume dead organisms, and, in doing so, carry out the natural process of decomposition. Like herbivores and predators, decomposers are heterotrophic, meaning that they use organic material to get their energy, carbon and nutrients for growth and development....
s, with the ability to recycle nutrient

Nutrient

A nutrient is a chemical that an organism needs to live and grow or a substance used in an organism's metabolism which must be taken in from its environment....
s from other organisms' waste poducts. These microbes play a vital role in biogeochemical cycles. The nitrogen cycle

Nitrogen cycle

The nitrogen cycle is the biogeochemical cycle that describes the transformations of nitrogen and nitrogen-containing compounds in nature. It is a cycle which includes Gas components....
, the phosphorus cycle

Phosphorus cycle

The phosphorus cycle is the biogeochemical cycle that describes the movement of phosphorus through the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. Unlike many other biogeochemical cycles, the Earth's atmosphere does not play a significant role in the movements of phosphorus, because phosphorus and phosphorus-based compounds are usually solids at...
and the carbon cycle

Carbon cycle

The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and Earth's atmosphere of the Earth....
all depend on microorganisms in one way or another. For example, nitrogen

Nitrogen

Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N and atomic number 7 and atomic mass 14.00674?. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78% by volume of Earth's atmosphere....
which makes up 78% of the planet's atmosphere is "indigestible" for most organisms, and the flow of nitrogen into the biosphere depends on a microbial process called fixation.

Due to the high level of horizontal gene transfer

Horizontal gene transfer

Horizontal gene transfer , also Lateral gene transfer , is any process in which an organism incorporates genetic material from another organism without being the Reproduction of that organism....
among microbial communities, microbial ecology is also of importance to studies of evolution

Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
.

Microbial resource management

Biotechnology

Biotechnology is technology based on biology, especially when used in agriculture, food science, and medicine. United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity defines biotechnology as:...
may be used alongside microbial ecology to address a number of environmental and economic challenges. Managing the carbon cycle to sequester carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalent bond to a single carbon atom. It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure and exists in Earth's atmosphere in this state....
and prevent excess methanogenesis

Methanogenesis

Methanogenesis or biomethanation is the formation of methane by microbes known as methanogens. Organisms capable of producing methane have been identified only from the Kingdom Archaea, a group Phylogenetics distinct from both eukaryotes and bacteria, although many live in close association with anaerobic bacteria....
is important in mitigating global warming

Global warming

Global warming is the increase in the Instrumental temperature record of the Earth's near-surface air and the oceans since the mid-twentieth century and its projected continuation....
, and the prospects of bioenergy

Bioenergy

Bioenergy is renewable energy made available from materials derived from biological sources. In its most narrow sense it is a synonym to biofuel, which is fuel derived from biological sources....
are being expanded by the development of microbial fuel cell

Microbial fuel cell

A microbial fuel cell or biological fuel cell is a bio-electrochemical system that drives a Electric current by mimicking bacterial interactions found in nature....
s. Microbial resource management advocates a more progressive attitude towards disease

Disease

A disease or medical condition is an abnormal condition of an organism that impairs bodily functions, associated with specific symptoms and Medical signs....
, whereby biological control agents are favoured over attempts at eradication. Fluxes in microbial communities has to be better characterized for this field's potential to be realised.

Microbial ecology

Microbial resource management

See also

External links