Table of contents
October 2007 Vol 5 No 10
In this issue
p741 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1761
Research Highlights
Bacterial virulence: Shigella shoots, Shigella scores | PDF (431 KB)
p743 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1754
Symbiosis: There's more to life than bacteria | PDF (465 KB)
p744 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1753
Evolution: Share and share alike... | PDF (325 KB)
p744 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1757
In brief
Virology | Malaria | Horizontal gene transfer | PDF (97 KB)
p744 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1760
Bacterial evolution: The (adaptive) benefits of sex | PDF (171 KB)
p745 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1755
Viral evolution: As the crow dies | PDF (223 KB)
p746 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1758
Host response: Genital herpes takes its toll | PDF (216 KB)
p746 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1759
Structural biology: POTRA domains close up | PDF (281 KB)
p747 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1756
News and Analysis
Genome watch: Urbane decay | PDF (194 KB)
p748 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1763
Disease watch
In the news | PDF (460 KB)
p750 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1764
Foreword
Focus on: Marine microbiology
Reviews
Microbial oceanography: paradigms, processes and promise
David M. Karl
p759 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1749
David Karl provides a critical review of the exciting new discipline of microbial oceanography by discussing selected key advances. These include probing the metabolic balance in the oceans, the exciting discovery of bacterial proteorhodopsin, establishing a long-term ocean observatory, the unexpected role of marine Archaea, and attempts to understand the result of perturbing nutrient levels in the sea.
Feast and famine — microbial life in the deep-sea bed
Bo Barker Jørgensen & Antje Boetius
p770 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1745
The deep-sea environment comprises a wealth of distinct ecosystems, such as hydrothermal vents, cold seeps and subsurface habitats. A multitude of bacteria and archaea live in these distant niches, and face challenges for growth at extremes of temperature, pressure and carbon limitation. This Review describes life in the deep-sea biosphere and discusses how microorganisms overcome the scarcity of energy resources, which is relevant to understanding the limitations to, and the diversity of, life on Earth.
Microbial structuring of marine ecosystems
Farooq Azam & Francesca Malfatti
p782 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1747
In this Review, the authors discuss the benefits of thinking about the ocean in terms of microniches and advocate the study of global processes on a microscale. Farooq Azam and Francesca Malfatti stress the need to study oceanic microbiology in situ and to use this as a unifying basis for modelling the influence of microorganisms on the structure of marine ecosystems. This might lead to new insights into the regulation of primary production and carbon cycling.
Resourceful heterotrophs make the most of light in the coastal ocean
Mary Ann Moran & William L. Miller
p792 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1746
In coastal systems mixed metabolic strategies of marine heterotrophic bacteria have implications for how efficiently organic carbon is retained in the marine food web, and how climatically important gases are exchanged between the ocean and the atmosphere. These resourceful heterotrophs use light, either directly or indirectly, to obtain supplemental energy and decrease their reliance on organic matter. This Review highlights these mechanisms and their importance to coastal carbon cycling by marine bacteria.
Marine viruses — major players in the global ecosystem
Curtis A. Suttle
p801 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1750
If stretched end to end, the estimated 1030 viruses in the oceans would span farther than the nearest 60 galaxies. This reservoir of genetic and biological diversity continues to yield exciting discoveries and, in this Review, Curtis A. Suttle highlights the areas that are likely to be of greatest interest in the next few years.
Perspectives
Opinion
Mix and match: how climate selects phytoplankton
Paul G. Falkowski & Matthew J. Oliver
p813 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1751
Unlike prokaryotes, which do not leave a fossil trail, the patterns of change over evolutionary time of eukaryotic phytoplankton can be derived from microfossils. Here, Paul Falkowski and Matthew Oliver use the fossil record, resource competition theory and the physical principles of ocean dynamics to propose how climate might have affected phytoplankton populations in the past, and make predictions for the future.
Opinion
The importance of culturing bacterioplankton in the 'omics' age
Stephen Giovannoni & Ulrich Stingl
p820 | doi:10.1038/nrmicro1752
Stephen Giovannoni and Ulrich Stingl discuss recent advances in the cultivation of bacterioplankton, and review the new insights into the ecology and physiology of these microorganisms that have been enabled by metagenomic and population studies of cultivated strains.
Correspondence
Correspondence: The hologenome theory disregards the coral holobiont
William Leggat, Tracy Ainsworth, John Bythell, Sophie Dove, Ruth Gates, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Roberto Iglesias-Prieto & David Yellowlees
| doi:10.1038/nrmicro1635-c1
Correspondence: The hologenome theory disregards the coral holobiont: reply from Rosenberg et al.
Eugene Rosenberg, Omry Koren, Leah Reshef, Rotem Efrony & Ilana Zilber-Rosenberg
| doi:10.1038/nrmicro1635-c2
