Editorial: J. Basic Microbiol. Supplement 2009

• Book ID: 102393715
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 33 KB
• Volume: 49
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0233-111X
• DOI: 10.1002/jobm.200990013

✦ Synopsis

Microbes and the environment

The topic of environmental interactions has received growing attention over the last years. In addition to the investigation of microbe-mineral interface processes at the level of molecular mechanisms, which has been covered in a Special Issue of Journal of Basic Microbiology in 2007, the formation of biofi lms can be considered a relevant process in environmental interactions. This is covered in this Online Special Issue showing that biofi lms can be formed on galvanized steel. Other environmental interactions include metal responses towards iron, molybdenium, cadmium, or also arsenite and arsenate, the biodegradation of organic pollutants like diisodecyl phtalate or triphenylmethanes and the use of lignin as donor of C1 components. Environments like marine sediments, volcanic rocks, the Sargasso sea metagenome allow the identifi cation of microbial communities using cultivation-dependent and -independent methods.

The high interest in subjects of environmental microbiology warranted the compilation of this Special Issue on "Microbes and the Environment". The original research papers and short communications cover an astonishing range of microbial environments. The research in both, identifi cation of consortia involved in environmental interactions and alterations, as well as the defi nition of mechanisms in environmental interactions from gene expression through metabolite profi ling offers a multitude of new applications, e.g. in microbially aided bioremediation approaches, or for the use of regulatory pathways for specifi c gene expression in biotechnology strains.