A comparison to the root and rhizosphere microbial assemblages retrieved from the distantly related dicotyledonous plants Arabidopsis thaliana and A. thaliana relatives (Bulgarelli et al., 2012; Lundberg et al., 2012; Schlaeppi et al., 2014) revealed both striking differences as well as common features.
Microbial assemblages were sampled from an offshore deep sub-surface petroleum reservoir 2.5 km below the ocean floor off the coast of Norway, providing conditions of high temperature and pressure, to identify new thermostable enzymes.
For instance, it was critical to first establish whether the anterior nares are inhabited either by a defined, characteristic microbiota or by transient microbial assemblages that result from perpetually changing exposures to bioaerosols, dust particles, water, etc.
Furthermore, co-occurrence networks built from microbial assemblages exposed to contaminated sediments displayed reduced connectivity compared to controls, suggesting a more stochastic assembly dynamic, where microbial interactions are reduced.
Many distinct marine ecosystems and their microbial assemblages are identified and studied, ranging from ice-swept polar seas to deep-sea hydrothermal vents.
Results from high-throughput sequencing showed that microbial assemblages colonizing the artificial substrates were species-rich (maximum mean 9165 OTUs).
Cluster analysis of the DGGE banding pattern from the different wetlands showed that microbial assemblages separated according to water depth, and sequences of different phylogenetic groups, such as Alpha, Beta and Delta-Proteobacteria, Nitrospirae, Bacteroidetes, Acidobacteria, Firmicutes, Synergistetes and Deferribacteres could be retrieved from DGGE bands.
Here, we investigated the ecosystem engineering capacity of stromatolitic microbial assemblages with respect to their ability to stabilise sediment using material from one of the few remaining living stromatolite systems (Highborne Cay, Bahamas).
With MagPI, an increase in adhesion (a proxy for particle capture potential and interface stability) was determined from day 1 and this increased with time in all microbial assemblages.
Nevertheless, to predict the consequences of ocean warming on microbial assemblages, analyses of natural communities in situ environmental conditions might yield different, and perhaps more reliable, inferences of underlying temperature relationships than the responses derived from simulation experiments.
