A holy grail for environmental microbiologists
is being able to predict the effects of any given
microbial community on a particular environment.
In an era of increasingly dramatic
changes in global climate, this goal is becoming
evermore important. It is now well accepted
that microorganisms have had and continue
to have a profound influence on shaping the
chemistry of the Earth. It would thus be both
intellectually satisfying and practically useful if
we could enumerate the microbial players in a
specific locale, and, knowing their metabolic
potential and how they regulate their various
metabolisms, make predictions about how
their presence would shape the geochemistry
of that locale as it evolves in time
