biodiversity science. The Microbial Biodiversity programme called to develop
innovative methods and techniques to accelerate the discovery and characterization
of microbial diversity, and to establish reliable databases to collect and exchange
information on the biological characteristics of microorganisms. It was particularly
encouraged to improve the knowledge in freshwater microbial diversity to increase
the available understanding of the effects of microbial diversity on aquatic
ecosystem functioning, suppression of diseases organisms, provision of clean water
through the respiration of organic carbon, denitrification and other metabolic processes, and to gain insights into the functioning and microbial regulation of biogeochemical cycles. The programme also urged to explore major issues concerning
the conservation, origin and maintenance of microbial biodiversity.
In the past 20 years, and mainly over the past decade, microbial ecologists have
developed, optimised and standardised powerful methods to capture microbial
taxonomic and functional diversity. They have successfully combined multidisciplinary approaches from different scientific disciplines such as microbiology,
ecology, molecular biology, bioinformatics and computational science and have
efficiently linked available information on microbial diversity within a worldwide
network. This sustained effort circumvented some of the methodological and
conceptual concerns that had strongly limited the general perception of how
important microbes are for Earth biodiversity and initiated the effective transplantation of concepts and basic knowledge of the general ecology grounded on plants
and animals to microbial ecology. Efforts are now addressed to establish a predictive framework for the distribution and diversity of microorganisms, blurring the
disciplinary boundaries that traditionally separated ecologists of tall and tiny.
Currently, global initiatives such as the International Census of Marine
Microbes (ICoMM), the Earth Microbiome (Gilbert et al. 2014) and the Human
Microbiome projects (Methé et al. 2012), as well as international marine initiatives
to profusely explore the microbial component in the surface (Tara Oceans Cruise,
JCVI Global Ocean Survey, Ocean Sampling Day) and in the deep ocean
(Malaspina Expedition) have been successfully promoted. The creation of an
interdisciplinary Unified Microbiome Initiative to understand and harness the
capabilities of the set of Earth’s microbial ecosystems has been recently proposed
(Alivisatos et al. 2015; Dubilier et al. 2015). Although, nothing equivalent is found
for the freshwater realm despite the fact that the wide repertory of inland waters on
Earth (Downing et al. 2006) contains a large, novel and unexplored microbiota
(e.g. Hahn 2006; Esteban and Finlay 2010; Barberán and Casamayor 2011; Newton
et al. 2011).
In the case of aquatic ecosystems from remote high-altitude mountain areas, the
gap of knowledge is still big. Both the oligotrophic and highly diluted nature of the
lake waters and the difficulties to collect samples in such painful to reach places
have limited the interest among microbiologists to explore these isolated environments. Comparatively, such remote inland waters have remained less explored
than lowland freshwaters. Although, aquatic microbes are abundant in the plankton
7 Towards a Microbial Conservation Perspective …
159
innovative methods and techniques to accelerate the discovery and characterization
of microbial diversity, and to establish reliable databases to collect and exchange
information on the biological characteristics of microorganisms. It was particularly
encouraged to improve the knowledge in freshwater microbial diversity to increase
the available understanding of the effects of microbial diversity on aquatic
ecosystem functioning, suppression of diseases organisms, provision of clean water
through the respiration of organic carbon, denitrification and other metabolic processes, and to gain insights into the functioning and microbial regulation of biogeochemical cycles. The programme also urged to explore major issues concerning
the conservation, origin and maintenance of microbial biodiversity.
In the past 20 years, and mainly over the past decade, microbial ecologists have
developed, optimised and standardised powerful methods to capture microbial
taxonomic and functional diversity. They have successfully combined multidisciplinary approaches from different scientific disciplines such as microbiology,
ecology, molecular biology, bioinformatics and computational science and have
efficiently linked available information on microbial diversity within a worldwide
network. This sustained effort circumvented some of the methodological and
conceptual concerns that had strongly limited the general perception of how
important microbes are for Earth biodiversity and initiated the effective transplantation of concepts and basic knowledge of the general ecology grounded on plants
and animals to microbial ecology. Efforts are now addressed to establish a predictive framework for the distribution and diversity of microorganisms, blurring the
disciplinary boundaries that traditionally separated ecologists of tall and tiny.
Currently, global initiatives such as the International Census of Marine
Microbes (ICoMM), the Earth Microbiome (Gilbert et al. 2014) and the Human
Microbiome projects (Methé et al. 2012), as well as international marine initiatives
to profusely explore the microbial component in the surface (Tara Oceans Cruise,
JCVI Global Ocean Survey, Ocean Sampling Day) and in the deep ocean
(Malaspina Expedition) have been successfully promoted. The creation of an
interdisciplinary Unified Microbiome Initiative to understand and harness the
capabilities of the set of Earth’s microbial ecosystems has been recently proposed
(Alivisatos et al. 2015; Dubilier et al. 2015). Although, nothing equivalent is found
for the freshwater realm despite the fact that the wide repertory of inland waters on
Earth (Downing et al. 2006) contains a large, novel and unexplored microbiota
(e.g. Hahn 2006; Esteban and Finlay 2010; Barberán and Casamayor 2011; Newton
et al. 2011).
In the case of aquatic ecosystems from remote high-altitude mountain areas, the
gap of knowledge is still big. Both the oligotrophic and highly diluted nature of the
lake waters and the difficulties to collect samples in such painful to reach places
have limited the interest among microbiologists to explore these isolated environments. Comparatively, such remote inland waters have remained less explored
than lowland freshwaters. Although, aquatic microbes are abundant in the plankton
7 Towards a Microbial Conservation Perspective …
159