Predictive modelling—or is it?

The Editors of Letters in Applied Microbiology will, at their discretion, publish invited and submitted 'Opinions' on subjects in the general area of Applied Microbiology. They will not be subjected to the normal refereeing procedures and reprints will not be provided. The 'Opinions' will not necessarily represent the views of the Society for Applied Bacteriology or of the Editors. The Editors may invite or readers may submit 'Responses' to published 'Opinions' provided that they are not merely polemics, and these will also be published at the discretion of the Editors. 'Responses' will be treated precisely like 'Opinions' . They should clearly indicate, in their first sentence, the 'Opinions' to which they are a response.     

Opinion

The Editors of Letters in Applied Microbiology will, at their discretion, publish invited and submitted 'Opinions' on subjects in the general area of Applied Microbiology. They will not be subjected to the normal refereeing procedures and reprints will not be provided. The 'Opinions' will not necessarily represent the views of the Society for Applied Bacteriology or of the Editors. The Editors may invite or readers may submit 'Responses' to published 'Opinions' , provided that they are not merely polemics, and these will also be published at the discretion of the Editors. 'Responses' will be treated precisely like 'Opinions' . They should clearly indicate, in their first sentence, the 'Opinion' to which they are a response.     

Opinion

The Editors of Letters in Applied Microbiology will, at their discretion, publish invited and submitted 'Opinions' on subjects in the general area of Applied Microbiology. They will not be subjected to the normal refereeing procedures and reprints will not be provided. The 'Opinions' will not necessarily represent the views of the Society for Applied Bacteriology or of the Editors. The Editors may invite or readers may submit 'Responses' to published 'Opinions' , provided that they are not merely polemics, and these will also be published at the discretion of the Editors. 'Responses' will be treated precisely like 'Opinions'. They should clearly indicate, in their first sentence, the 'Opinion' to which they are a response.     

Salmonella control in poultry: the need for the satisfactory evaluation of probiotics for this purpose

The Editors of Letters in Applied Microbiology will, at their discretion, publish invited and submitted 'Opinions' on subjects in the general area of Applied Microbiology. They will not be subjected to the normal refereeing procedures and reprints will not be provided. The 'Opinions' will not necessarily represent the views of the Society for Applied Bacteriology or of the Editors. The Editors may invite or readers may submit 'Responses' to published 'Opinions' , provided that they are not merely polemics, and these will also be published at the discretion of the Editors. 'Responses' will be treated precisely like 'Opinions' . They should clearly indicate, in their first sentence, the 'Opinion' to which they are a response.     

Gene transfer in staphylococci: stimulation and suppression by antibacterial agents

The Editors of Letters in Applied Microbiology will, at their discretion, publish invited and submitted 'Opinions' on subjects in the general area of Applied Microbiology. They will not be subjected to the normal refereeing procedures and reprints will not be provided. The 'Opinions' will not necessarily represent the views of the Society for Applied Bacteriology or of the Editors. The Editors may invite or readers may submit 'Responses' to published 'Opinions' , provided that they are not merely polemics, and these will also be published at the discretion of the Editors. 'Responses' will be treated precisely like 'Opinions' . They should clearly indicate, in their first sentence, the 'Opinion' to which they are a response.     

Opinion

The Editors of Letters in Applied Microbiology will, at their discretion, publish invited and submitted 'Opinions' on subjects in the general area of Applied Microbiology. They will not be subjected to the normal refereeing procedures and reprints will not be provided. The 'Opinions' will not necessarily represent the views of the Society for Applied Bacteriology or of the Editors. The Editors may invite or readers may submit 'Responses' to published 'Opinions' , provided that they are not merely polemics, and these will also be published at the discretion of the Editors. 'Responses' will be treated precisely like 'Opinions'. They should clearly indicate, in their first sentence, the 'Opinion' to which they are a response.     

Predictive modelling

The Editors of Letters in Applied Microbiology will, at their discretion, publish invited and submitted 'Opinions' on subjects in the general area of Applied Microbiology. They will not be subjected to the normal refereeing procedures and reprints will not be provided. The 'Opinions' will not necessarily represent the views of the Society for Applied Bacteriology or of the Editors. The Editors may invite or readers may submit 'Responses' to published 'Opinions' , provided that they are not merely polemics, and these will also be published at the discretion of the Editors. 'Responses' will be treated precisely like 'Opinions' . They should clearly indicate, in their first sentence, the 'Opinion' to which they are a response.     

Experience of the use of probiotics for Salmonellae control in poultry

The Editors of Letters in Applied Microbiology will, at their discretion, publish invited and submitted 'Opinions' on subjects in the general area of Applied Microbiology. They will not be subjected to the normal refereeing procedures and reprints will not be provided. The 'Opinions' will not necessarily represent the views of the Society of Applied Bacteriology or of the Editors. The Editors may invite or readers may submit 'Responses' to published 'Opinions' , provided that they are not merely polemics, and these will also be published at the discretion of the Editors. 'Responses' will be treated precisely like 'Opinions' . They should clearly indicate, in their first sentence, the 'Opinion' to which they are a response.     

Opinion

The Editors of Letters in Applied Microbiology will, at their discretion, publish invited and submitted ' Opinions ' on subjects in the general area of Applied Microbiology. They will not be subjected to the normal refereeing procedures and reprints will not be provided. The ' Opinions ' will not necessarily represent the views of the Society for Applied Bacteriology or of the Editors. The Editors may invite or readers may submit ' Responses ' to published ' Opinions ', provided that they are not merely polemics, and these will also be published at the discretion of the Editors. ' Responses ' will be treated precisely like ' Opinions '. They should clearly indicate, in their first sentence, the ' Opinion ' to which they are a response.     

Opinion

The Editors of Letters in Applied Microbiology will, at their discretion, publish invited and submitted ' Opinions ' on subjects in the general area of Applied Microbiology. They will not be subjected to the normal refereeing procedures and reprints will not be provided. The ' Opinions ' will not necessarily represent the views of the Society for Applied Bacteriology or of the Editors. The Editors may invite or readers may submit ' Responses ' to published ' Opinions ', provided that they are not merely polemics, and these will also be published at the discretion of the Editors. ' Responses ' will be treated precisely like ' Opinions '. They should clearly indicate, in their first sentence, the ' Opinion ' to which they are a response.     

A current view on long noncoding RNAs in yeast and filamentous fungi

Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology - Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are crucial players in epigenetic regulation. They were initially discovered in human, yet they emerged as common factors...     

Transfer of scientific knowledge to practitioners: Do we need a reform of the journal policy?

Milberg (2014, Applied Vegetation Science, this issue) argues that scientific journals do not adequately respond to the practical needs of vegetation management. To bridge the gap between scientists and practitioners, he proposes a reform of applied vegetation research and of the journal Applied Vegetation Science. As the Chief Editors, we agree that it is vital to make the results of our studies accessible to decision‐makers and managers, but this cannot be at the expense of scientific research, or its publication. International scientific journals are source of theoretical foundations for applications, therefore they cannot be transformed to primarily solve practical issues while giving up their focus on understanding processes.     

Bioreactors based on immobilized fungi: bioremediation under non-sterile conditions

Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology - White-rot fungi are renowned for their remarkable potential to degrade a wide range of organic pollutants. They are applicable in standard bioreactors...     

Correction to: Prokaryotic expression and action mechanism of antimicrobial LsGRP1C recombinant protein containing a fusion partner of small ubiquitin-like modifier

Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology - The published online version contains editing mistake in Table 2. See below for the corrected Table.     

Complete mitochondrial genome of the endophytic fungus Pestalotiopsis fici: features and evolution

Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology - Endophytic fungi (EF) live within plants and have profound impacts on plant communities. They are astonishingly diverse but poorly studied at the genome...     

Correction to: Environmental biodegradation of haloarchaea-produced poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) in activated sludge

Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology - The published online version contains mistake in the funding information. Instead of 30370096, it should have been 31370096.     

The role of sponge-bacteria interactions: the sponge Aplysilla rosea challenged by its associated bacterium Streptomyces ACT-52A in a controlled aquarium system

Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology - Sponge-associated bacteria play a critical role in sponge biology, metabolism and ecology, but how they interact with their host sponges and the role of...     

Correction to: Biosynthesis and production of quercitols and their application in the production of pharmaceuticals: current status and prospects

Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology - The published online version contains mistake in the chemical structure of scyllo-inosose in Fig. 5 and Fig. 7. The correct configuration of 1-hydroxyl...     

Proteomic-based biomarker discovery for development of next generation diagnostics

Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology - In the post-genome age, proteomics is receiving significant attention because they provide an invaluable source of biological structures and functions at...     

The All-Species Living Tree project: a 16S rRNA-based phylogenetic tree of all sequenced type strains

The signing authors together with the journal Systematic and Applied Microbiology (SAM) have started an ambitious project that has been conceived to provide a useful tool especially for the scientific microbial taxonomist community. The aim of what we have called "The All-Species Living Tree" is to reconstruct a single 16S rRNA tree harboring all sequenced type strains of the hitherto classified species of Archaea and Bacteria. This tree is to be regularly updated by adding the species with validly published names that appear monthly in the Validation and Notification lists of the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. For this purpose, the SAM executive editors, together with the responsible teams of the ARB, SILVA, and LPSN projects (www.arb-home.de, www.arb-silva.de, and www.bacterio.cict.fr, respectively), have prepared a 16S rRNA database containing over 6700 sequences, each of which represents a single type strain of a classified species up to 31 December 2007. The selection of sequences had to be undertaken manually due to a high error rate in the names and information fields provided for the publicly deposited entries. In addition, from among the often occurring multiple entries for a single type strain, the best-quality sequence was selected for the project. The living tree database that SAM now provides contains corrected entries and the best-quality sequences with a manually checked alignment. The tree reconstruction has been performed by using the maximum likelihood algorithm RAxML. The tree provided in the first release is a result of the calculation of a single dataset containing 9975 single entries, 6728 corresponding to type strain gene sequences, as well as 3247 additional high-fquality sequences to give robustness to the reconstruction. Trees are dynamic structures that change on the basis of the quality and availability of the data used for their calculation. Therefore, the addition of new type strain sequences in further subsequent releases may help to resolve certain branching orders that appear ambiguous in this first release. On the web sites: www.elsevier.de/syapm and www.arb-silva.de/living-tree, the All-Species Living Tree team will release a regularly updated database compatible with the ARB software environment containing the whole 16S rRNA dataset used to reconstruct "The All-Species Living Tree". As a result, the latest reconstructed phylogeny will be provided. In addition to the ARB file, a readable multi-FASTA universal sequence editor file with the complete alignment will be provided for those not using ARB. There is also a complete set of supplementary tables and figures illustrating the selection procedure and its outcome. It is expected that the All-Species Living Tree will help to improve future classification efforts by simplifying the selection of the correct type strain sequences. For queries, information updates, remarks on the dataset or tree reconstructions shown, a contact email address has been created (living-tree@arb-silva.de). This provides an entry point for anyone from the scientific community to provide additional input for the construction and improvement of the first tree compiling all sequenced type strains of all prokaryotic species for which names had been validly published.