ePrints

Prokaryotic diversity and its limits: microbial community structure in nature and implications for microbial ecology

Lookup NU author(s): Professor Thomas CurtisORCiD, Professor William Sloan

Downloads

Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.

Abstract

Recent advances in the estimation of prokaryotic diversity have brought us insight into two questions: what is the extent of prokaryotic diversity, and perhaps more importantly, why bother finding out. In this review, we highlight the insights about the extent of diversity that may be gained by considering patterns that occur, or are likely to occur, in the relative abundance of prokaryotic taxa. We posit that global reservoirs of diversity are an important driving force behind patterns in localised diversity seen in leaves, intestines and wastewater treatment reactors. Thus, where the reservoir community is very large and relatively even, chance alone will prevent physically identical communities from having the same, or sometimes even stable, communities. By contrast, communities that tend to be similar (even when not physically identical) and stable are observed where the source diversity is low. Thus the relationship between structure and function in a community can only be understood, predicted and engineered through an understanding of the source of diversity from which the community is drawn.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Curtis TP, Sloan WT

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Current Opinion in Microbiology

Year: 2004

Volume: 7

Issue: 3

Pages: 221-226

ISSN (print): 1369-5274

ISSN (electronic): 1879-0364

Publisher: Elsevier Ltd.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mib.2004.04.010

DOI: 10.1016/j.mib.2004.04.010

Altmetrics

Share