Toward understanding, managing, and protecting microbial ecosystems

Abstract

Microbial communities are at the very basis of life on earth, catalyzing biogeochemical reactions driving global nutrient cycles. However, unlike for plants and animals, microbial diversity is not on the biodiversity-conservation agenda. The latter, however, would imply that microbial diversity is not under any threat by anthropogenic disturbance or climate change. This maybe a misconception caused by the rudimentary knowledge we have concerning microbial diversity and its role in ecosystem functioning. This perspective paper identifies major areas with knowledge gaps within the field of environmental microbiology that preclude a comprehension of microbial ecosystems on the level we have for plants and animals. Opportunities and challenges are pointed out to open the microbial black box and to go from descriptive to predictive microbial ecology.

Keywords: biodiversity–ecosystem functioning; microbial diversity; redundancy; resilience; resistance.

Figure 1

Schematic representation of important elements in elucidating the role of microbial diversity in ecosystem functioning. Crucial element is the application of a Functional Biodiversity concept to link microbial diversity to ecosystem functioning. This approach will facilitate predictive ecosystem modeling and will be fostered by omics techniques. However, to make this conceptual step the mechanistic insight into what is going on in the “black box” being the structure and functioning of microbial communities and underlying populations an cells, needs to be elucidated. Application of ecological theory, conceptual experimental design, novel methodology, and mathematical modeling will be the key to gain access to the knowledge in the “Black box.”