Although the majority of such cases concerns protists with phagotrophic life style [5], significant examples have recently been reported for fungal genomes, especially plant pathogens [6] or species living in complex microbial populations such as rumen [7].
A broad implication is that large microbial populations such as bacterioplankton accumulate high diversity in some genome properties, while remaining constrained in others [ 2].
Focusing on one gene alone also excludes other members of the microbial population, such as archaea, fungi and protists whose small subunit rRNA genes differ significantly from bacterial 16S rRNA genes.
Due to diverse microbial population in such ecosystems, freshwater environment provides favourable conditions for the spread of antimicrobial resistance.
Other chapters describe risk assessments that differ from the standard approach: assessment involving microbial or radiological sources, susceptible populations such as children, and chemicals that have an optimum range of no effect.
With the assumptions of a homogeneous habitat (constant selection pressure), short-range migration, and negligible epistasis, our model is a first step toward understanding clonal interference in spatially structured populations, such as microbial colonies or biofilms.
In nature, microbial populations face fluctuations in environmental parameters such as temperature, osmotic pressure, pH and nutrient concentration.
Unlike the analysis of artificially constructed mutations for a limited number of target genes, experimental evolution of microbial populations could be useful for identifying such genetic paths across the whole genome.
Yet, when genomes are highly dynamic and environments very diverse, such as in microbial populations in the human gut, how can cooperation persist in the face of cheaters constantly arising by gene loss or migration?
The survival benefit in IPF-AE patients treated with broad spectrum antimicrobials instead of high dose steroids shown in the present study could be attributed to the fact that they militate the role that microbial populations play in the pathogenesis of such a condition.
Variable conditions such as temperature, humidity, microbial populations and others have a large influence on the rate of degradation of a chemical substance.
