Microbial Symbioses in Aquatic Environments

Dear Colleagues,

Microorganisms live in multi-species assemblages. Symbiosis and mutualism are crucial for the understanding of the origin of multicellular organisms including metazoans and higher algae. Though these communities are nowadays easy to elucidate by next-generation sequencing, their functionality is difficult to understand. Knowledge on metabolic properties, flows of substrates and products is lagging behind the fast-growing metagenome data, revealing more and more microbial taxa of unknown function. Reasons for occurrence of specific organisms, cooperation and symbioses between taxa, and their adaptations are still largely unknown.

In this issue, we are trying to shed light on symbiosis and mutualism of microbial communities in geobiological processes at micro- and macroscales. This includes, but is not restricted to, communities involved in primary production and elemental cycling, in mineral dissolution and precipitation, in plant and animal-microbe symbioses. One aim of this special issue is to enlighten the cooperation and symbioses of eukaryotes (protists) in microbial biofilms and mats as one key process in the origin of animals. For this special issue, we ask for research papers and reviews describing symbiotic relationships of diverse microbial consortia and interaction with eukaryotes.

We are interested in extreme habitats and complex biofilm-microbial mat ecosystems including eukaryote diversity. We are also looking for research pointing out key players in complex communities like in marine sediments or in animal microbiomes. We are also interested in the role of (bacterial) viruses in microbial communities.

All methodologies, like (functional) metagenomics, metabolome studies, in situ analysis of parameters (macro- to nanoscale), microbial biomarker tracing and structure-functional microscopic techniques, are welcome.

Dr. Michael Hoppert
Prof. Dr. Joachim Reitner
Guest Editors

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• Microbes in communities - geobiological processes
• symbioses
• microbiomes in basic metazoans
• eukaryotes in biofilms
• microbial mats