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The Roles of Microbes in Stream Restorations
Robert H Hilderbrand1, Ted Bambakidis2, Byron C Crump3
1Appalachian Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Frostburg, MD, USA. rhilderbrand@umces.edu.
Microbial Ecology
|January 25, 2023
Summary
Designing river restorations to support microbial communities can enhance ecosystem services and resilience. Microbial
Area of Science:
- Riverine ecology
- Environmental microbiology
- Restoration ecology
Background:
- Riverine ecosystems provide essential goods and services, but are degrading globally.
- Current restoration efforts often fall short of expectations.
- Microbial communities drive key ecosystem processes like nutrient cycling and pollutant breakdown.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose design strategies for river restorations that explicitly promote microbial communities.
- To highlight the role of microbes as ecological restoration engineers.
- To improve restoration effectiveness and ecosystem resilience by focusing on microbial diversity and function.
Main Methods:
- Discussing design concepts for promoting microbial communities in river restorations.
- Leveraging microbial 'omics techniques (metagenomics, metatranscriptomics) for ecological assessment.
- Analyzing microbial communities in sediments, biofilms, and water columns.
Main Results:
- Focusing on microbial diversity and function can enhance restoration outcomes.
- Microbial 'omics offer advanced assessment capabilities for stream health.
- Microbes can serve as early indicators of ecosystem function and restoration success.
Conclusions:
- Explicitly designing restorations for microbial communities can improve effectiveness.
- Microbial assessments can guide restoration and predict suitability for animal reintroductions.
- Ecological metatranscriptomics provides novel insights into restoration design and ecological services.
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