Ricardo Guerrero

Guerrero, Ricardo

Hemeroteca Cientifica Catalana

EDITORIALRicardo GuerreroMicrobial ecology comes of agePublished online: 24 October 2002 Springer-Verlag and SEM 2002Origins of microbial ecologyMicrobial ecology is a scientiﬁc ﬁeld that developedduring the second half of the twentieth century. As acohesive branch of the microbiological sciences, itblossomed in the 1960s during an era of public concernwith environmental issues [1]. The publication, in 1962,of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson brought aboutchanges in the perception of nature. The concepts whichmicrobial ecology represents, however, were not new;they were already evident in the pioneering microbio-logical research of Beijerinck, Winogradsky and othersin the late nineteenth century. As a scientiﬁc disciplinewith its own identity, microbial ecology arose from theintegration of microbiology and ecology. The principlesof general ecology, so brilliantly developed throughoutthe twentieth century, were based mainly on studies ofanimals and plants. Ecological studies, however, rarelyconsidered the role of microorganisms in ecosystems, orwhether ecological theory could also be applied to thosetiny creatures. Nevertheless, only when the principles ofecology can be applied to all living things will they gainuniversal validity. Overlooking microorganisms in eco-logical studies means disregarding ‘‘the unseen majori-ty’’ [7], as microorganisms make up most of the biomasson Earth. Furthermore, since they were the only in-habitants of the planet for more than three quarters oflife’s history, microorganisms play unique roles in eco-systems. The inclusion of prokaryotes in global ecolog-ical studies would almost double estimates of carbonstored in living organisms, not to mention those of ni-trogen and phosphorous. In fact, prokaryotes comprisethe largest pool of those elements in the biota [7].The ﬁrst textbook with the words ‘‘microbial ecology’’in the title, authored by Thomas D. Brock, was publishedin 1966 [3]. It was followed by Sheldon Aaronson’s Ex-perimental Microbial Ecology, in 1970, and Martin Alex-ander’s Microbial Ecology, in 1971. Since then, manyother scientists have contributed – either directly or indi-rectly – to the development of the subject to its currentstatus. The journal Microbial Ecology (Springer Verlag)has been published since 1974. (See comprehensive lists ofbooks and periodicals on microbial ecology in [1].)The relatively newness of microbial ecology accounts forthe lack of deﬁnition of its tremendous complexity and forthe multiple approaches necessary for its development.Microbial ecology deals with natural processes, with in-teractions between microorganisms, and between micro-organisms and other species and the environment. It alsooﬀers new clues to solve problems that modern humansocieties face. The breadth of subjects that make up mi-crobial ecology include autoecology, or ecology of ge-netically related populations; ecology of speciﬁcecosystems such as lakes or the rumen; biogeochemicalecology, which studies biogeochemical cycles; ecology ofrelationships between associated micro- and ‘‘macroor-ganisms’’; and applied microbial ecology [4].The ISMEs (meetings) and the ISME (society)Researchers who through microbial ecology found newapproaches to their studies felt the need tomeet and sharetheir experiences and knowledge. In 1972, ThomasRosswall, from the University of Uppsala, Sweden,chaired a meeting that was the cradle of future regularsymposia on microbial ecology, and which has becomeknown as the ‘‘Zero meeting’’ – as it was presented in the1992 meeting by the author of this introduction (RG, inISME-6) and conﬁrmed by Tiedje in a more recent pub-lication [6]. The ﬁrst formal International Symposium onMicrobial Ecology (ISME-1) took place inDunedin, NewZealand, in 1977, and was chaired by Margaret Loutit.Since then the ISMEs have been held every 3 years. TheInt Microbiol (2002) 5: 157–159DOI 10.1007/s10123-002-0093-9R. GuerreroDepartment of Microbiology,and Special Research Center for Complex Systems(Microbiology Group), University of Barcelona, SpainE-mail: guerrero@retemail.esTel.: +34-93-4482373Fax: +34-93-3341079ISMEs’ Proceedings have kept researchers up to date onadvancements, trends, and prospects in the ﬁeld. Theirsuccessive titles are listed in Table 1.The ISMEs (meetings) were ﬁrst organized under theauspices of the International Committee on MicrobialEcology (ICOME) of the International Union of Mi-crobiological Societies (IUMS). At the ISME-8 meetingin Halifax, Canada, ICOME founded the InternationalSociety of Microbial Ecology (ISME), which has sincebecome the oﬃcial organizer of the ISMEs. The ﬁrstpresident of the society was James M. Tiedje (MichiganState University, USA), who was followed by the cur-rent president, Yehuda Cohen (Hebrew University ofJerusalem, Israel). ISME (society) has adopted thejournal Microbial Ecology as its oﬃcial publication. Themain objective of the ISME is to promote the exchangeof scientiﬁc information on microbial ecology, whichincludes organizing meetings, sponsoring publications,promoting education and research activities, and facili-tating interactions between workers in microbial ecologyand other disciplines [see the ISME website: www.mi-crobes.org].New frontiers in microbial ecologyOnDecember 11–13, 2001, a special meeting onmicrobialecology, ‘‘NewFrontiers inMicrobial Ecology’’, was heldin Barcelona, Spain. It was organized under the auspicesof Fundacio´n Ramo´n Areces, Spain, and was not in-tended as a conventional specialized meeting. On thecontrary, its primary aim was to present recent advancesin microbial ecology to both microbiologists not workingin the ﬁeld of microbial ecology and to researchers inother ﬁelds. Prof. Julio R. Villanueva, Vice-president ofthe Scientiﬁc Council of Fundacio´n Ramo´nAreces, and adistinguished microbial biochemist himself, was aware ofthe need for microbiologists to see microbes from anecological perspective and for ecologists to realize the roleofmicrobes in ecosystems.He therefore invited the authorof this introduction (RG) to organize a Symposium oncurrent topics in microbial ecology. A 3-day symposiumconsisting of plenary lectures could not deal with all topicsincluded in such a wide branch of the microbiologicalsciences. Regardless, ‘‘New Frontiers in Microbial Ecol-ogy’’ provided a suitable framework to present the state ofthe art in this burgeoning scientiﬁc ﬁeld: new prospectsand approaches based on novel techniques, alongwith theresults of their applications. The last day of the Sympo-sium, a meeting took place between representatives ofSpanish and Latin American microbiological societiesand theAmericanSociety forMicrobiology (ASM).Fromthe meeting, possible collaborations between ASM andmicrobiological societies inLatinAmerica andSpainwerediscussed. This special issue of International Microbiol-ogy includes nine reviews that reﬂect topics that werediscussed at the meeting, and a Perspectives article, byDaniel O. Sordelli and Lily Schuermann, on the interna-tional activities of ASM.Contents of this issueEven though the program and titles for the Symposiumhad been agreed to well before September 11, 2001, theﬁrst talk turned out to be of utmost interest after theevents of that date: Ronald M. Atlas, from the Uni-versity of Louisville, KY, USA – who at the time of theSymposium was the ASM Elected President – , discussedthe threat of bioterrorism from a microbial ecologyTable 1 Dates, locations and Proceedings of the International Symposia on Microbial Ecology (1972–2001)Meeting Year Place Proceedings‘‘ISME-0’’ 1972 Uppsala, Sweden Rosswall T (ed) (1973) Modern methods in the study of microbial ecology.Swedish Natural Science Research Council. Uppsala, SwedenISME-1 1977 Dunedin, New Zealand Loutit MW, Miles JAR (eds) (1978) Microbial ecology. Springer,Berlin, GermanyISME-2 1980 Warwick, UK Ellwood DC, Latham MJ, Hedger JN, Lynch JM, Slater JH (eds.)(1980) Contemporary microbial ecology. Academic, London, UKISME-3 1983 East Lansing, USA Klug MJ, Reddy CA (eds) (1984) Current perspectives in microbial ecology.American Society for Microbiology, Washington DC, USAISME-4 1986 Ljubljana, Slovenia Megusar F, Gantar M (eds) (1986) Perspectives in microbial ecology.Slovene Society for Microbiology, Ljubljana, SloveniaISME-5 1989 Kyoto, Japan Hattori T, Ishida Y, Maruyama Y, Morita RY, Uchida A, (eds) (1989)Recent advances in microbial ecology. Japan Scientiﬁc Societies Press,Tokyo, JapanISME-6 1992 Barcelona, Spain Guerrero R, Pedro´s-Alio´ C (eds.) (1993) Trends in microbial ecology.Spanish Society for Microbiology, Barcelona, SpainISME-7 1995 Santos, Brazil Martins MT, Sato M, Tiedje JM, Mendonc¸a-Hagler LC, Do¨bereiner J,Sanchez P (eds) (1997) Progress in microbial ecology. Sociedade Brasileirade Microbiologia, Sa˜o Paulo, BrazilISME-8 1998 Halifax, Canada Bell CR, Brilinsky M, Johnson-Green P (eds.) (2000) Microbialbiosystems: New frontiers. Atlantic Canada Society for Microbial Ecology,Halifax, CanadaISME-9 2001 Amsterdam,The Netherlands158perspective. As was the focus of his talk, his contributionhere is on anthrax, conveying the opinion that, althoughBacillus anthracis is a potential weapon of mass de-struction, physicians and public health workers canprovide an adequate protective response. EmilioMontesinos and coworkers, from the University of Gi-rona, Spain, describe interactions between microorgan-isms and plants. At the Symposium, Montesinosdiscussed a selected series of topics in microbial ecologydealing with plant-associated bacteria, mostly in thecontext of plant pathology. The prospects for plant-beneﬁcial bacteria to control plant diseases (biopesti-cides) and to promote plant growth (biofertilizers) in thecontext of sustainable agriculture are of great interest.Ricardo Guerrero and coworkers, from the Universityof Barcelona, Spain, approach the study of microbialmats from an ecological perspective, to show that matsare an example of a minimal ecosystem. Yehuda Cohen,from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, pre-sents another approach to the study of microbial mats;in this case, as potential agents of bioremediation in oilspills. Carlos Pedro´s-Alio´ and Rafael Simo´, from theInstitute for Marine Sciences, Barcelona, Spain, discussa few examples of how microorganisms can be studiedfrom satellites when present in huge amounts, as is thecase for plankton, and what eﬀects they may have onglobal ecology. John F. Stolz et al., from DuquesneUniversity, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, write about arsenicand selenium, whose roles in microbial ecology haveonly recently been recognized. These two elements, toxicat high concentrations, can be required in trace amountsfor growth and metabolism. Dirk Schu¨ler, from theMax-Planck-Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bre-men, Germany, reviews the ecology, physiology andmolecular biology of magnetotactic bacteria. These un-ique microorganisms are able to precipitate iron asmagnetite, enabling them to sense and orient to mag-netic ﬁelds. Carmen Ascaso, from the Center for Envi-ronmental Sciences, Madrid, Spain, and JacekWierzchos, from the University of Lleida, Spain, presenta new approach to study lithobiontic microorganismsand their inorganic traces, and their application in as-trobiology for the detection of life in Martian rocks.Related to this topic is the review by Kenneth H.Nealson et al., from the Jet Propulsion Lab at the Cal-ifornia Institute of Technology and the University ofSouthern California, USA. They discuss the methodsand approaches needed in the search for extraterrestriallife. As life beyond Earth might be diﬀerent in its com-position, generals properties related to physics andchemistry, rather than to biology, which is more familiarto us, must be considered ﬁrst.Concluding remarksIn 1956, Albert J. Kluyver (1888–1956) and his formerstudent, Cornelis B. van Niel (1897–1985), publishedThe Microbe’s Contribution to Biology, the printedversion of the John M. Prather Lectures that the authorshad delivered at Harvard University in April 1954 [5].Kluyver is considered to be the father of comparativebiochemistry. He spread the idea of the unity of life andpromulgated the use of microorganisms to elucidatebiochemical pathways and energy transformations, aswell as their application as aids in biochemical technol-ogy [2]. In Chapter 2 of Microbe’s Contribution hewrites: ‘‘[...] the biochemist who examines extracts ofcrushed cell suspensions from the most diﬀerent sourceswill have the greatest diﬃculty in identifying the sourceof the materials; they may as well originate from sulfurbacteria as from some pigeon’s organ ’’. All life is con-nected by the cycling of matter and all organisms areconnected through the web of ecosystems. Microbialecology provides a most useful approach to understandthe inherent unity in the apparent diversity of life. AsTiedje wisely forecasts: ‘‘[...] the state of our disciplinehas never been stronger, our future is bright becausemany major challenges of society over the next decadeshave their root in microbial ecology.’’ [6] The editors ofthis issue hope that this work will contribute somewhatto the brilliant future of microbial ecology.Finally, I wish to thank the eﬃcient work of the twoco-editors of this issue, John F. Stolz and MercedesBerlanga, who have made possible the publication of themonograph so accurately prepared and always in time.It has been a pleasure to collaborate with them – theyare good scientists and excellent friends. I also wish toacknowledge the many students, both in my laboratoryand from the School of Biology of the University ofBarcelona, who helped us to organize and develop theSymposium. I want to thank especially three of themwho transcribed and prepared the text of some of thelectures: Laura Llacuna, Helena Martı´nez Lo´pez-Amor,and He´ctor Ruiz. Lastly, I wish to thank the the HanseWissenschaftskolleg (Delmenhorst, Germany) for thegenerous fellowship from from January to June 2002,which allowed me to prepare the ﬁnal version of thisissue.References1. Atlas RM, Bartha R (1997) Microbial ecology. Fundamentalsand applications, 4th edn. Benjamin/Cummings, Menlo Park,California2. Bennett JW, Phaﬀ HJ (1993) Early biotechnology: the Delftconnection. ASM News 8:401–4043. Brock TD (1966) Principles of microbial ecology. Prentice-Hall,Englewood Cliﬀs, New Jersey4. Guerrero R, Pedro´s-Alio´ C (1993) Trends in microbial ecology.Spanish Society for Microbiology, Barcelona, Spain5. Kluyver AJ, van Niel CB (1956) The microbe’s contribution tobiology. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Masssachusetts6. Tiedje JM (2000) Twenty years since Dunedin: the past and fu-ture of microbial ecology. In: Bell CR, Brilinsky M, Johnson-Green P (eds) Microbial biosystems: new frontiers. AtlanticCanada Society for Microbial Ecology, Halifax7. Whiteman WB, Coleman DC, Wiebe WJ (1998) Prokaryotes.The unseen majority. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 95:6578–6583159

Microbial ecology comes of age

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Microbial ecology comes of age

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