Bacillus subtilis biofilms locally disperse by ejecting motile cells through osmotic pressure generated by their poly-γ-glutamic acid hydrogel, a mechanism resembling that through which Cnidaria eject...

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Cellular metabolism is widely understood as an integrated network of redox reactions, energy conservation, and biosynthetic pathways. Here we show that across diverse prokaryotic lineages, loss of red...

Temperature is a fundamental determinant of bacterial physiology and ecology. Optimal growth temperature (OGT) is highly variable across species, contributing to differences in where and when species ...

Oxygen is one of the most important environmental variables affecting microbial activity and composition, but is often difficult to measure in situ. We developed a tool, OxyMetaG, that leverages diffe...

Marker-gene microbiome surveys systematically under-sample rare taxa, causing alpha diversity metrics to reflect dominance rather than true richness. This conceptual mismatch can lead to misleading e...

Antarctic soils represent one of the more extreme environments for microbial life on Earth, yet they harbor heterogeneous and diverse microbial communities. Biologists have long hypothesized that Antarctic microorganisms are unique from those found on other continents due to the extreme geographic isolation and the cold, dry, and challenging conditions typical of Antarctica. To test this hypothesis, we focused on a cosmopolitan bacterial genus, Arthrobacter, that is widely distributed across global soils. We first profiled a global metagenomic dataset from both Antarctic and non-Antarctic surface soils to quantify the distributions of Arthrobacter strains. Despite high strain-level diversity, 90% of the strains found in the Antarctic soils were only found on the continent. We then used cultivation-based phenotypic analyses and strain-level genomic comparisons to assess how Antarctic strains and non-Antarctic strains differ in their traits and environmental preferences. Not only did we find evidence of endemism, but Antarctic Arthrobacter also have genomic characteristics and environmental tolerances that suggest they are uniquely adapted to Antarctic conditions. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. U.S. National Science Foundation, NSF 21-567, EAR 1950681 Australian Research Council, FT240100502, DE250101210

The microbial composition of metagenomes is identified in seconds by profiling against large databases.

A broad diversity of fungi can be found in the near-surface atmosphere, with both the amounts and types of airborne fungi varying across space and time. However, the specific spatiotemporal patterns i...

Abstract. Despite an ever-expanding number of bacterial taxa being discovered, many of these taxa remain uncharacterized with unknown traits and environmen

Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are a group of environmental bacteria that encompass nearly 200 described species, some of which can cause chronic pulmonary infection in humans. What makes these inf...

Bacterial diversity can be overwhelming. There is an ever-expanding number of bacterial taxa being discovered, but many of these taxa remain uncharacterized with unknown traits and environmental prefe...

Background The study of microbial communities has been revolutionised in recent years by the widespread adoption of culture independent analytical techniques such as 16S rRNA gene sequencing and metag...

Nature Microbiology - In this Consensus Statement, the authors outline strategies for processing, analysing and interpreting low-biomass microbiome samples, and provide recommendations to minimize...

Global surveys of soil bacteria have identified several taxa that are nearly ubiquitous and often the most abundant members of soil bacterial communities. However, it remains unclear why these taxa ar...

Confined spaces are omnipresent in the micro-environments, including soil aggregates and intestinal crypts, yet little is known about how bacteria behave under such conditions where movement is challe...