While soils seem to harbor the most complex microbial communities, these considerations apply to many other environments as well, like e.g. oceans and sediments.
Recent metagenomic studies of soils and biomass composts [ 6, 9, 16] have yielded significant insights into uncultivated microbial communities; these studies, however, have investigated only single or a few sampling time points, probably due to the considerable cost and labor-intensity of analyzing the metagenomic data.
With information about the composition of these microbial communities the development and/or optimization of adequate cleaning, disinfection, and sterilization procedures for spacecraft preparation before launch will be possible.
The viruses present in these microbial communities, the 'human virome,' are an important aspect of the human microbiome that is particularly understudied in the absence of overt disease.
The properties of the obtained networks were significantly different from those of random networks, indicating that the assembly of microbial communities in these lake zones was non-random.
To date, the microbial communities of these soils have not been studied, in part due to the well-documented drop in bacterial culturability in dried soils.
Novel molecular biological tools for monitoring microbial communities in these engineered systems have also been developed, which can help with the understanding of the structure and functions of the microorganisms involved.
Without outside influences, microbial communities in these environments can continue to evolve in isolation - developing novel solutions to the problems that plague their soil counterparts, such as competition and the desire to fight for resources.
Saulnier et al. compared the gut microbiomes of healthy children and pediatric patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and found some differences in the microbial communities in these two sample sets, which might suggest a novel technique for the diagnosis of pediatric patients with functional bowel disorders (Saulnier et al. 2011).
Additionally, under the neutral condition, the distance between the top and port 4 increased during stable operation as compared to that during unstable operation, suggesting that the microbial communities at these reactor positions (i.e., the top and port 4) changed.
This suggests active HGT may be measured at the population level in microbial communities and these biogeographic patterns may serve as a model to study bacteria adaptation and speciation.
