微生物生态学理论框架

微生物是生态系统的重要组成部分,直接或间接地参与所有的生态过程。微生物生态学是基于微生物群体的科学,利用微生物群体DNA/RNA等标志物,重点研究微生物群落构建、组成演变、多样性及其与环境的关系,在生态学理论的指导和反复模型拟合下由统计分析得出具有普遍意义的结论。其研究范围从基因尺度到全球尺度。分子生物学技术的发展,使人们可以直接从基因水平上考查其多样性,从而使得对微生物空间分布格局及其成因的深入研究成为可能。进而可以从方法学探讨微生物生物多样性、分布格局、影响机制及其对全球变化的响应等。在微生物生态学研究中,群落构建与演化、分布特征(含植物-微生物相互关系)、执行群体功能的机理(生物地球化学循环等)、对环境变化的响应与反馈机理是今后需要关注的重点领域。概述了微生物生态学的概念,并初步提出其理论框架,在对比宏观生态学基础理论和模型的基础上,分析微生物多样性的研究内容、研究方法和群落构建的理论机制,展望了今后研究的重点领域。     

种子微生物生态学研究进展

植物种子微生物生态学是研究与种子相联合的微生物的组成﹑功能﹑演替、它们之间关系及其与宿主之间相互关系的科学。种子中蕴含着丰富的微生物资源,它们对种子以及植物的健康具有重要的影响。不同种类植物种子联合的微生物群落由于受到种子本身及外界环境因素的影响而有所差异。论述了种子微生物生态学的概念、主要研究方法、种子微生物生态系统中的微生物种类、相关影响因素,以及种子微生物生态学研究的发展方向。种子微生物生态学的研究对生产实践有重要意义,同时也将丰富种子生物学的内容,对种子科学的发展起到促进作用。     

Linking soil process and microbial ecology in freshwater wetland ecosystems

Soil microorganisms mediate many processes such as nitrification, denitrification, and methanogenesis that regulate ecosystem functioning and also feed back to influence atmospheric chemistry. These processes are of particular interest in freshwater wetland ecosystems where nutrient cycling is highly responsive to fluctuating hydrology and nutrients and soil gas releases may be sensitive to climate warming. In this review we briefly summarize research from process and taxonomic approaches to the study of wetland biogeochemistry and microbial ecology, and highlight areas where further research is needed to increase our mechanistic understanding of wetland system functioning. Research in wetland biogeochemistry has most often been focused on processes (e.g., methanogenesis), and less often on microbial communities or on populations of specific microorganisms of interest. Research on process has focused on controls over, and rates of, denitrification, methanogenesis, and methanotrophy. There has been some work on sulfate and iron transformations and wetland enzyme activities. Work to date indicates an important process level role for hydrology and soil nutrient status. The impact of plant species composition on processes is potentially critical, but is as yet poorly understood. Research on microbial communities in wetland soils has primarily focused on bacteria responsible for methanogenesis, denitrification, and sulfate reduction. There has been less work on taxonomic groups such as those responsible for nitrogen fixation, or aerobic processes such as nitrification. Work on general community composition and on wetland mycorrhizal fungi is particularly sparse. The general goal of microbial research has been to understand how microbial groups respond to the environment. There has been relatively little work done on the interactions among environmental controls over process rates, environmental constraints on microbial activities and community composition, and changes in processes at the ecosystem level. Finding ways to link process-based and biochemical or gene-based assays is becoming increasingly important as we seek a mechanistic understanding of the response of wetland ecosystems to current and future anthropogenic perturbations. We discuss the potential of new approaches, and highlight areas for further research.     

Predicting bacterial community assemblages using an artificial neural network approach

Understanding the interactions between the Earth's microbiome and the physical, chemical and biological environment is a fundamental goal of microbial ecology. We describe a bioclimatic modeling approach that leverages artificial neural networks to predict microbial community structure as a function of environmental parameters and microbial interactions. This method was better at predicting observed community structure than were any of several single-species models that do not incorporate biotic interactions. The model was used to interpolate and extrapolate community structure over time with an average Bray-Curtis similarity of 89.7. Additionally, community structure was extrapolated geographically to create the first microbial map derived from single-point observations. This method can be generalized to the many microbial ecosystems for which detailed taxonomic data are currently being generated, providing an observation-based modeling technique for predicting microbial taxonomic structure in ecological studies.     

全球变化背景下内蒙古草原土壤微生物多样性维持机制研究进展

全球变化对人类环境的影响是近几十年世界广泛关注的热点之一。内蒙古草原不仅是我国重要的牲畜和饲料生产基地, 而且有着不可替代的生态系统功能。土壤微生物是地球上多样性最高的生物类群, 在驱动碳氮循环等多种生态系统过程中发挥着至关重要的作用。由于研究技术的限制和群落结构复杂等原因, 土壤微生物生态学研究还处于描述性阶段, 理论研究还很缺乏。鉴于此, 利用分子生物学技术尤其是新一代测序技术, 从理论层面上系统地研究全球变化背景下我国北方草地微生物多样性的维持机制具有重要意义。本文在比较各种环境变化对土壤微生物群落的相对影响的基础上, 分析全球变化对微生物多样性影响的物理化学和生态学机制, 并对未来内蒙古草原微生物多样性的重点研究领域进行了展望, 包括: (1)加强全球变化多因素综合研究; (2)加强微生物多样性维持的生态学机制的研究; (3)加强地上与地下多样性关联机制的研究; (4)加强全球大尺度多生态系统的整合研究。     

Modeling microbial community structure and functional diversity across time and space

Microbial communities exhibit exquisitely complex structure. Many aspects of this complexity, from the number of species to the total number of interactions, are currently very difficult to examine directly. However, extraordinary efforts are being made to make these systems accessible to scientific investigation. While recent advances in high-throughput sequencing technologies have improved accessibility to the taxonomic and functional diversity of complex communities, monitoring the dynamics of these systems over time and space - using appropriate experimental design - is still expensive. Fortunately, modeling can be used as a lens to focus low-resolution observations of community dynamics to enable mathematical abstractions of functional and taxonomic dynamics across space and time. Here, we review the approaches for modeling bacterial diversity at both the very large and the very small scales at which microbial systems interact with their environments. We show that modeling can help to connect biogeochemical processes to specific microbial metabolic pathways.     

土壤微生物群落构建理论与时空演变特征

土壤微生物作为陆地生态系统的重要组成部分,直接或间接地参与几乎所有的土壤生态过程,在物质循环、能量转换以及污染物降解等过程中都发挥着重要作用。对土壤微生物时空演变规律及其形成机制的研究,不仅是微生物演变和进化的基础科学问题,也是预测微生物及其所介导的生态功能对环境条件变化响应、适应和反馈的理论依据。讨论了土壤微生物群落的定义、测度方法和指标,认为群落是联系动植物宏观生态学与微生物生态学的基础,群落构建机制是宏观和微观生态学都需要研究的核心科学问题;从生态学的群落构建理论出发,阐述了包括生态位理论/中性理论、过程理论和多样性-稳定性理论在土壤微生物时空演变研究中的应用,以及微生物群落在时间和空间上的分布特征及其尺度效应;确立了以微生物群落构建理论为基础、不同时空尺度下土壤微生物群落演变特征为主要内容的微生物演变研究的基本框架。     

Quantitative real-time PCR approaches for microbial community studies in wastewater treatment systems: Applications and considerations

Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) has been widely used in recent environmental microbial ecology studies as a tool for detecting and quantifying microorganisms of interest, which aids in better understandings of the complexity of wastewater microbial communities. Although qPCR can be used to provide more specific and accurate quantification than other molecular techniques, it does have limitations that must be considered when applying it in practice. This article reviews the principle of qPCR quantification and its applications to microbial ecology studies in various wastewater treatment environments. Here we also address several limitations of qPCR-based approaches that can affect the validity of quantification data: template nucleic acid quality, nucleic acid extraction efficiency, specificity of group-specific primers and probes, amplification of nonviable DNA, gene copy number variation, and limited number of sequences in the database. Even with such limitations, qPCR is reportedly among the best methods for quantitatively investigating environmental microbial communities. The application of qPCR is and will continue to be increasingly common in studies of wastewater treatment systems. To obtain reliable analyses, however, the limitations that have often been overlooked must be carefully considered when interpreting the results.     

Energy landscapes shape microbial communities in hydrothermal systems on the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge

Methods developed in geochemical modelling combined with recent advances in molecular microbial ecology provide new opportunities to explore how microbial communities are shaped by their chemical surroundings. Here, we present a framework for analyses of how chemical energy availability shape chemotrophic microbial communities in hydrothermal systems through an investigation of two geochemically different basalt-hosted hydrothermal systems on the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge: the Soria Moria Vent field (SMVF) and the Loki''s Castle Vent Field (LCVF). Chemical energy landscapes were evaluated through modelling of the Gibbs energy from selected redox reactions under different mixing ratios between seawater and hydrothermal fluids. Our models indicate that the sediment-influenced LCVF has a much higher potential for both anaerobic and aerobic methane oxidation, as well as aerobic ammonium and hydrogen oxidation, than the SMVF. The modelled energy landscapes were used to develop microbial community composition models, which were compared with community compositions in environmental samples inside or on the exterior of hydrothermal chimneys, as assessed by pyrosequencing of partial 16S rRNA genes. We show that modelled microbial communities based solely on thermodynamic considerations can have a high predictive power and provide a framework for analyses of the link between energy availability and microbial community composition.     

土壤动物肠道微生物多样性研究进展

随着分子生物学技术方法的快速发展,动物肠道微生物已成为医学、动物生理学与微生物生态学等研究领域热点。土壤动物种类繁多,分布广泛,其作为陆地生态系统重要组分,是驱动生态系统功能的关键因子。土壤动物体内的微生物由于与宿主长期共存,在与宿主协同进化中形成了丰富多样的群落结构,能够影响土壤动物本身的健康,进而介导土壤动物生态功能的实现。近些年,土壤动物肠道微生物工作方兴未艾,日渐得到重视。总结了四个部分内容：1)首先总结了土壤动物肠道微生物多样性领域的研究现状,该领域年发文量逐年增长,且近十年增长快速。土壤模式生物肠道微生物多样性研究较多且更为深入。土壤动物肠道微生物多样性组成与驱动机制、共存机制及群落构建的理论研究是该领域前沿;2)进而展示了土壤动物肠道微生物多样性组成和研究方法,土壤动物肠道菌群组成以变形菌门、厚壁菌门、放线菌门和拟杆菌门为主。早期工作基于传统分离培养,近年来新一代测序技术推动了该领域发展;3)接着关注了土壤动物肠道微生物的生态学功能,总体上体现在肠道微生物能帮助宿主分解食物基质、参与营养利用、影响寿命和繁殖及提高宿主免疫能力,且其能够影响土壤动物的气体排放及介导其对生态系...     

污水短程硝化体系氨氧化菌与亚硝酸盐氧化菌的生态学研究进展

短程硝化(partial nitrification, PN)是一种绿色低碳的生物脱氮创新技术,伴随厌氧氨氧化(anaerobic ammonia oxidation, Anammox)污水脱氮技术的进一步推广,短程硝化作为提供其电子受体的重要环节,已成为了污水脱氮领域的研究热点。氨氧化菌(ammonia-oxidizing bacteria,AOB)和亚硝酸盐氧化菌(nitrite-oxidizing bacteria, NOB)是该技术的核心竞争微生物,掌握这两类微生物的生态学特征,借助生态学理论和手段调控AOB淘汰NOB,提高种群的可预测性,对于实现稳定高效的短程硝化具有重要意义。本文基于生态学角度介绍了AOB和NOB基础分类、生理性能及生态位分离,重点综述了短程硝化系统中AOB和NOB的生长动力学、群落构建、环境因素和相互作用,最后对这两类微生物的未来研究重点和研究方法进行了展望,为短程硝化工艺的快速启动和稳定运行提供理论指导。     

A dynamic programming algorithm for binning microbial community profiles

MOTIVATION: A number of community profiling approaches have been widely used to study the microbial community composition and its variations in environmental ecology. Automated Ribosomal Intergenic Spacer Analysis (ARISA) is one such technique. ARISA has been used to study microbial communities using 16S-23S rRNA intergenic spacer length heterogeneity at different times and places. Owing to errors in sampling, random mutations in PCR amplification, and probably mostly variations in readings from the equipment used to analyze fragment sizes, the data read directly from the fragment analyzer should not be used for down stream statistical analysis. No optimal data preprocessing methods are available. A commonly used approach is to bin the reading lengths of the 16S-23S intergenic spacer. We have developed a dynamic programming algorithm based binning method for ARISA data analysis which minimizes the overall differences between replicates from the same sampling location and time. RESULTS: In a test example from an ocean time series sampling program, data preprocessing identified several outliers which upon re-examination were found to be because of systematic errors. Clustering analysis of the ARISA from different times based on the dynamic programming algorithm binned data revealed important features of the biodiversity of the microbial communities.     

Unlocking the diversity and biotechnological potential of marine surface associated microbial communities

Marine sessile eukaryotic hosts provide a unique surface for microbial colonisation. Chemically mediated interactions between the host and colonising microorganisms, interactions between microorganisms in the biofilm community and surface-specific physical and chemical conditions impact differently on the diversity and function of surface-associated microbial assemblages compared with those in planktonic systems. Understanding the diversity and ecology of surface-associated microbial communities will greatly contribute to the discovery of next-generation, bioactive compounds. On the basis of recent conceptual and technological advances insights into the microbiology of marine living surfaces are improving and novel bioactives, including those previously ascribed as host derived, are now revealed to be produced by members of the surface-associated microbial community.     

Exploring mixed microbial community functioning: recent advances in metaproteomics

System approaches to elucidate ecosystem functioning constitute an emerging area of research within microbial ecology. Such approaches aim at investigating all levels of biological information (DNA, RNA, proteins and metabolites) to capture the functional interactions occurring in a given ecosystem and track down characteristics that could not be accessed by the study of isolated components. In this context, the study of the proteins collectively expressed by all the microorganisms present within an ecosystem (metaproteomics) is not only crucial but can also provide insights into microbial functionality. Overall, the success of metaproteomics is closely linked to metagenomics, and with the exponential increase in the availability of metagenome sequences, this field of research is starting to experience generation of an overwhelming amount of data, which requires systematic analysis. Metaproteomics has been employed in very diverse environments, and this review discusses the recent advances achieved in the context of human biology, soil, marine and freshwater environments as well as natural and bioengineered systems.     

基于BIOLOG技术分析氮沉降和降水对土壤微生物功能多样性的影响

土壤微生物是有机物分解和养分循环的主要介质,因此在维持土壤的功能多样性和持续性方面发挥着关键作用。气候变化驱动因素会影响土壤微生物的生理活动,引起其群落结构和功能多样性的改变,并对生物地球化学循环和气候―生态系统反馈产生连锁效应,其中氮沉降和降水是全球气候变化的研究热点。土壤氮(N)的有效性有可能通过改变微生物的群落组成以调节微生物对降水变化的响应,但目前关于N沉降和降水及其交互作用对土壤微生物群落功能多样性的影响机制仍不清楚。为了准确预测未来气候条件下生态系统的功能状况,需要更好地了解土壤微生物对环境变化的响应。基于BIOLOG技术综述了氮沉降和降水变化及其交互作用对土壤微生物功能多样性影响的相关研究进展,可以为进一步研究全球气候变化背景下地下生态学的发展提供参考。另外,分析阐述了当前工作中存在的一些主要瓶颈,并对未来的研究热点进行了探讨和展望。     

Limited versus unlimited membership in microbial communities: evaluation and experimental tests of some paradigms

Recent developments in community ecology have allowed for the synthesis of community models based on principles of limited and unlimited membership. In this discussion, these developments are used as a framework for evaluating the validity of three paradigms that have constrained research on aquatic microbial communities. Because microbes are considered to possess global distributions, species availability is not generally considered to be an important factor determining microbial community composition in most habitats. Requirements for the global distribution of a species are not the same as those for unlimited availability. Rates of propagule transport to isolated and newly formed aquatic systems ( 4 years old) are low enough to have a strong effect on microbial community composition. Natural aquatic systems may require several years to accumulate a full complement of species adapted to environmental conditions at a particular time. Except under extreme circumstances, environmental conditions are not considered to constrain membership in aquatic microbial communities. Most evidence for this contention is based on an inability to detect simple relationships between species distributions and levels of individual environmental parameters. Environmental measurements are often made at a spatial scale much greater than that of the local environment of microbes. Biotic interactions, such as competition, are generally considered to be the predominant force structuring aquatic microbial communities. Although there is an extensive laboratory database to suggest the importance of different types of species interactions, there have been few field studies to confirm this. A general research protocol is described to test predictions derived from current theory of microbial community organization. A mesocosm approach is advocated in order to incorporate crucial aspects of environmental realism into experimental designs while maintaining some of the control found in the laboratory.     

Causes and consequences of pattern diversification in a spatially self-organizing microbial community

Surface-attached microbial communities constitute a vast amount of life on our planet. They contribute to all major biogeochemical cycles, provide essential services to our society and environment, and have important effects on human health and disease. They typically consist of different interacting genotypes that arrange themselves non-randomly across space (referred to hereafter as spatial self-organization). While spatial self-organization is important for the functioning, ecology, and evolution of these communities, the underlying determinants of spatial self-organization remain unclear. Here, we performed a combination of experiments, statistical modeling, and mathematical simulations with a synthetic cross-feeding microbial community consisting of two isogenic strains. We found that two different patterns of spatial self-organization emerged at the same length and time scales, thus demonstrating pattern diversification. This pattern diversification was not caused by initial environmental heterogeneity or by genetic heterogeneity within populations. Instead, it was caused by nongenetic heterogeneity within populations, and we provide evidence that the source of this nongenetic heterogeneity is local differences in the initial spatial positionings of individuals. We further demonstrate that the different patterns exhibit different community-level properties; namely, they have different expansion speeds. Together, our results demonstrate that pattern diversification can emerge in the absence of initial environmental heterogeneity or genetic heterogeneity within populations and can affect community-level properties, thus providing novel insights into the causes and consequences of microbial spatial self-organization.Subject terms: Microbial ecology, Microbial ecology, Biofilms     

土壤微生物群落抵抗力和恢复力研究进展

人类活动的不断加剧使得土壤生态系统承受着环境干扰压力。土壤微生物受到环境干扰的响应程度（抵抗力）及恢复至原来状态的能力（恢复力）决定着土壤生态系统的可持续性。梳理和总结了土壤微生物群落对环境干扰的抵抗力和恢复力方面的研究进展。首先,在介绍土壤微生物群落抵抗力和恢复力概念的基础上,阐述了通过评估微生物群落的结构和功能的变化来系统表征抵抗力和恢复力;随后,分析了最近十年（2012-2021年）有关文献,发现土壤微生物群落的结构和（或）功能在环境干扰后的恢复力总体较弱,但耕作、有机物料添加和轮作等农田管理措施下的响应趋势表现出一定的规律性;继而,从个体水平的休眠和胁迫忍耐、种群水平的生存策略、群落水平的多样性和相互作用以及生态系统水平的历史遗留效应等方面分析了土壤微生物群落抵抗力和恢复力的维持机制;最后,从功能性状、多功能性和植物-土壤微生物整体性对未来研究做出了展望,以期为构建土壤健康评价体系及预测环境干扰对土壤功能的影响提供科学依据。     

实时荧光定量PCR及其在微生物生态学中的应用

定量描述微生物群落的组成,在微生物生态学的许多研究领域都是非常重要的。然而由于可培养技术的局限性,定量描述微生物群落成为比较困难的事情。最近包括PCR技术在内的分子生物学技术为人们提供了有力的工具,使对微生物群落的分布、丰度等有了进一步的了解。实时荧光定量PCR技术作为核酸定量检测技术,自从发明以来在微生物生态学研究中逐渐得到了广泛的应用。从微生物生态学角度,综述了实时荧光定量PCR技术的原理、发展、优缺点及其在微生物生态学研究中的应用与研究进展,并探讨了实时荧光定量PCR技术的发展和应用前景。