Microbial ecology

The great plate count anomaly. Counts of cells obtained via cultivation are orders of magnitude lower than those directly observed under the microscope. This is because microbiologists are able to cultivate only a minority of naturally occurring microbes using current laboratory techniques, depending on the environment.^[1]

Microbial ecology (or environmental microbiology) is the ecology of microorganisms: their relationship with one another and with their environment. It concerns the three major domains of life—Eukaryota, Archaea, and Bacteria—as well as viruses.^[2]

Microorganisms, by their omnipresence, impact the entire biosphere. Microbial life plays a primary role in regulating biogeochemical systems in virtually all of our planet's environments, including some of the most extreme, from frozen environments and acidic lakes, to hydrothermal vents at the bottom of deepest oceans, and some of the most familiar, such as the human small intestine, nose, and mouth.^[3]^[4]^[5] As a consequence of the quantitative magnitude of microbial life (calculated as 5.0×10³⁰ cells; eight orders of magnitude greater than the number of stars in the observable universe^[6]^[7]) microbes, by virtue of their biomass alone, constitute a significant carbon sink.^[8] Aside from carbon fixation, microorganisms' key collective metabolic processes (including nitrogen fixation, carbon fixation, methane metabolism, and sulphur metabolism) control global biogeochemical cycling.^[9] The immensity of microorganisms' production is such that, even in the total absence of eukaryotic life, these processes would likely continue unchanged.^[10]

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^ Hentges, David J. (1993). "The Anaerobic Microflora of the Human Body". Clinical Infectious Diseases. 16: S175–S180. doi:10.1093/clinids/16.Supplement_4.S175. ISSN 1058-4838. JSTOR 4457097. PMID 8324114.
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[5] Hentges, David J. (1993). "The Anaerobic Microflora of the Human Body". Clinical Infectious Diseases. 16: S175–S180. doi:10.1093/clinids/16.Supplement_4.S175. ISSN 1058-4838. JSTOR 4457097. PMID 8324114.

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