Microbial diversity is organised into operationally defined species. However, it remains unclear whether these, or finer-scale groups represent biologically meaningful units in natural communities. He...

Microbial diversity is organised into operationally defined species. However, it remains unclear whether these, or finer-scale groups represent biologically meaningful units in natural communities. He...

Communications Biology - Two coinfecting archaeal viruses provide insights into virus-virus interactions

Resource supply is generally considered a dominant driver of microbial diversity. Here, using a four-species bacterial consortium, we asked whether...

Efficient degradation of fucoidans depends on complementary bacterial guilds that cooperatively break backbone and side-chain sugars, revealing a conserved, globally relevant mechanism that shapes mar...

Abstract. Microbial populations strongly shape their environment, which can re-route adaptation toward organism-generated fitness optima. However, the cond

Abstract. Anaerobic carbon transformation in freshwater sediments drives substantial methane emissions globally, yet the microbial taxa linking complex car

A common expectation in modern microbiome research is that microbes evolve rapidly (1). Whether in response to pollution, climate change, or host interaction, it is often assumed that high turnover ra...

The T7 bacteriophage deactivates bacterial defence systems through T7K phosphorylation of nearly all host and phage proteins during infection.

Nature Methods - Getting over ANOVA: estimation graphics for multi-group comparisons

Satellite observations reveal substantial decreases in coccolithophore blooms across the North Atlantic and Barents Sea.

Abstract. Microbial ecosystems often sustain stable metabolic functions despite pronounced taxonomic turnover, yet the mechanisms underlying such reproduci

An 8-year soil meta-omic time series shows how mobile genetic elements shape permafrost microbial diversity and impact a range of functions, including carbon and nutrient cycling.

An 8-year soil meta-omic time series shows how mobile genetic elements shape permafrost microbial diversity and impact a range of functions, including carbon and nutrient cycling.

Abstract. Many cyanobacteria are capable of flocculation: the formation of floating linked assemblages of many thousands of cells. Flocculation is a highly

Soil microbial ecology is increasingly recognized as essential to climate mitigation, but realizing its full potential requires shifting from static genome inventories to dynamic assessments of microbial activity. This study shows that methane-cycling microbes exhibit stable, depth-stratified expression patterns, even in response to major redox and flooding shifts, undermining assumptions that water-table manipulations common in wetland management can alone reduce methanogenesis. Instead, methane cycling is shaped by spatially organized, transcriptionally active networks involving not only methanogens but also methanotrophs, fermenters, and iron reducers. These findings expose the limitations of genome-only models and highlight the need for soil diagnostics that capture in situ activity. Together, we provide a foundation for developing activity-based microbiome tools, embedding microbial functions into Earth system models, and designing interventions that move beyond “single-lever” strategies and instead work with the structure and dynamics of microbial communities as complex, layered systems.

An exploration of chaos theory in population dynamics showed that unpredictable systems can often be modelled using surprisingly simple mathematics.

Eriksson et al. conduct a global marine microbiome diversity analysis and demonstrate how the surface ocean latitudinal diversity gradient is disproportionately shaped by a few species-rich taxa. Mask...

Eriksson et al. conduct a global marine microbiome diversity analysis and demonstrate how the surface ocean latitudinal diversity gradient is disproportionately shaped by a few species-rich taxa. Mask...

Eriksson et al. conduct a global marine microbiome diversity analysis and demonstrate how the surface ocean latitudinal diversity gradient is disproportionately shaped by a few species-rich taxa. Mask...

Migration of microbial communities is poorly understood. Here, the authors use a meso-tube assay to show that hundreds of microbial species co-migrate over metre scales via chemotaxis, which restructu...

Nature - Integrated palaeontological, sedimentological and geochemical analyses of ancient rocks from Australia show that early eukaryotes were largely restricted to oxygenated benthic habitats,...

Genome-wide selective sweeps commonly occur in the human gut microbiome and can spread across the world within decades to produce epidemic-like population structures.

The TRACS algorithm tracks bacteria, viruses and parasites in metagenomic or population sequencing data, detecting microbial transmission even when multiple strains coexist within a host.

Understanding carbon cycling requires simplifying bacterial diversity into functional groups defined by genetic signatures.

Escherichia coli ABC transporter-dependent capsule gene analysis alongside the development and application of the kTYPr in silico capsule typing tool uncovers E. coli capsule diversity across environm...

Abstract. Prokaryote seasonality is well documented in lakes, coastal areas, and inland seas, yet microbial annual periodicity in diverse open ocean settin

Abstract. Marine viruses impact biogeochemical cycles through cell lysis, releasing organic matter and nutrients that fuel ocean productivity. Identifying