Global Microbiology

Overview: Microbes are everywhere, are the major contributor of the base of the food web in marine systems and hence support almost all marine life, support terrestrial plants that are the base of the terrestrial food web, and hence support almost all terrestrial life, including us, and profoundly influence the lives of most organisms directly and indirectly, in addition to shaping the planetary surface and habitable subsurface. Microbes are mighty! Most knowledge about microbes relates to their local activities, for example, their involvement in the production of yoghurt or cheese, their recycling of farm wastes, etc. But since they are everywhere, what about their global activities?

Let’s discover the global microbial citizens, who they are, what they are doing, how they affect us, and how we can use them to our advantage!

Creation of the TFs is a work in progress: those already available are indicated by titles that are live links. Titles of those still in the pipeline are shown for context.

Global connectivity

• Global connectivity

Global Microbiome

• The global microbial metagenome
• Time travel in microbes: global mixing of ancient and current microbes
• The deep subseafloor biosphere

Global Soil and Flora

• Microbial provision of soil ecosystem services
• The global biocrust

Global water

• The water cycle and its microbes
• Eutrophication and algal blooms
• Diversity of the global marine plankton
• The marine carbon pump and the viral shunt
• Global marine sediment microbial communities
• Oxygen minimum zones

Global air

• The global air microbiome

Global human health

• Global Diet and Health

Global animal health

Global plant health

• Global dispersal of fungal pathogens of plants

Global pollution and its microbiology

• Emerging pollutants

Global microbiology experiments

Global anthropogenically-influenced environments

Global social equity

• Microbes and social equity
• Health inequities and the microbiome