绿弯菌的研究现状及展望

绿弯菌是一个深度分支的门级别细菌类群,广泛分布于生物圈各种生境。现已生效发表的绿弯菌构成9个纲,但仅包含56个种;基于分子生态学的研究结果表明尚有大量绿弯菌类群仍是未培养状态。绿弯菌形态多样,营养方式和代谢途径十分丰富,参与了C、N、S等一系列重要生源元素的生物地球化学循环过程。研究该类群不仅有助于认识环境中微生物的多样性及其代谢特征,从而更好的理解微生物参与的生态学过程,还有助于揭示微生物对环境的适应及其进化。本文主要综述了绿弯菌的发现历史、营养、代谢及其在元素循环中的作用,并总结了其分离培养和潜在应用价值,最后展望了未来的研究方向,旨在为深入探究绿弯菌的进化、培养和驱动地球化学元素循环等研究提供参考。

Research status and prospect on bacterial phylum Chloroflexi

Microbial traits are core attributes closely related to microbial survival, growth and reproduction. These attributes could reflect the microbial responses to environmental changes, and then affect species distributions, community assembly processes, and relevant ecosystem functions. There is a growing recognition that, compared to microbial taxonomic information, microbial traits could expand our understanding of microbial ecological processes and provide mechanistic explanations of ecological patterns at the scales of population, community and ecosystem. Here, we address important ecological themes based on microbial traits in recent years, including the classification and determination of microbial traits, functional diversity and applications, the relationship between microbial traits and species distribution and community assembly, the effects of microbial traits on biodiversity and ecosystem functions and the response of microbial traits to global change. Although previous studies on microbial traits have been extended to all aspects of ecology and promoted the research and development of various frontier scientific problems, there are still many opportunities and challenges. Thus, we also provide perspectives such as research methods and directions based on microbial traits.