A new update on research in
Microbial Ecology Microbial Diversity and Phylogeny
Genomics and Metagenomics
Metaproteomics
Nucleic-Acid-based Characterization
Microarrays in Microbial Ecology
The Soil Environment
Plant Microbial Communities
Marine Microbial Environments
Ocean microbial communities
Human Microbial Environment
Wastewater Treatment
Bacterial Biofilms
Read more at:
Microbial EcologyLabels: Bacterial Biofilms, ecology, genomics, metagenomics, Metaproteomics, microarrays, microbial communities, Microbial Diversity, Microbial Environments, Phylogeny, Soil Environment, Wastewater
The small subunit ribosomal RNA gene (SSU rRNA) has been the cornerstone of
microbial ecology studies over the last 15 years, and has provided much of what we know about Bacterial and
Archaeal diversity and community structure, and has greatly aided microbial taxonomy.
Genomics is aiding our understanding of the relationships among closely related organisms, and ultimately of natural populations.
In a
recent study the available 16S rRNA genes from species type strains were examined. The most distant sequences in the median genus and family were about 4.4% and 14% different, respectively. The largest dissimilarity between a sequence and its closest relative in the same taxa (similar to single-linkage clustering distance) was 3.5% and 10% for the median genus and family. The ratio of the two values averaged less than 1.5 for all ranks, indicating that most taxa are not elongated, but are fairly spherical. When the near-full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences in the public databases were clustered into groups at proxy distances for species, genus, family and order, the number of clusters with time increased exponentially for all ranks documenting the enormous diversity of the microbial world.
from James R. Cole, Kostas Konstantinidis, Ryan J. Farris and James M. Tiedje
in Environmental Molecular MicrobiologyFurther reading:
Labels: Archaeal diversity, Microbial Diversity, Microbial taxonomy, Phylogeny