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Marine microbial diversity: can it be determined?

Carlos Pedrós-Alió1

  • 1Institut de Ciències del Mar, CMIMA-CSIC, P. Marítim de la Barceloneta 37-42, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. cpedros@icm.csic.es

Trends in Microbiology
|May 9, 2006
PubMed
Summary

The vast microbial biodiversity on Earth includes abundant, active taxa and rare, dormant species. Rare microbial taxa, often missed by molecular methods, can be cultured, explaining the

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Area of Science:

  • Microbial ecology
  • Environmental microbiology
  • Biodiversity research

Background:

  • Estimates of total microbial species on Earth vary widely, from 10^3 to 10^9.
  • Microbial ecosystems harbor distinct groups of abundant and rare taxa.
  • Global dispersal of microorganisms is a known phenomenon.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To explore the composition of microbial biodiversity.
  • To investigate the characteristics of abundant versus rare microbial taxa.
  • To reconcile molecular and culturing approaches in microbial ecology.

Main Methods:

  • Review of existing literature on microbial diversity estimates.
  • Analysis of microbial community structure based on abundance and growth rates.
  • Comparison of molecular retrieval versus culturing techniques for microbial taxa.

Main Results:

  • Microbial ecosystems contain abundant taxa crucial for functions and rare taxa in a seed bank.
  • Abundant taxa are active, subject to predation and viral lysis, and detectable by molecular methods.
  • Rare taxa grow slowly or are dormant, less affected by lysis/predation, and often culturable.

Conclusions:

  • Microbial biodiversity comprises both actively functioning and dormant populations.
  • The 'everything is everywhere' principle is supported by the culturability of rare taxa.
  • Integrating molecular and culturing methods provides a more complete picture of microbial diversity.

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