This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The Atacama Desert in northern Chile is the driest nonpolar desert on Earth. The almost complete lack of precipitation means that it can support very little life, especially in its hyperarid core. But this core region harbors expansive fields of ancient boulders that scientists think could shelter unique microbes from the extreme desert environment. To find out, researchers used DNA sequencing techniques to compare the microbes inhabiting the soil directly beneath the Atacama Desert boulders and in the open areas beside them. They found a substantial difference in these microbial communities, with significantly more archaea occupying the soil below the boulders than beside them. Remarkably, the team also discovered that many of these archaea belong to a completely new genus of Thaumarchaeota archaea, which they named Candidatus Nitrosodeserticola. These archaea harbor genes involved in ammonia oxidation, carbon fixation, acetate metabolism, and the ability to tolerate extreme environmental conditions..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This course covers introductory microbiology from a systems perspective, considering microbial diversity, population dynamics, and genomics. Emphasis is placed on the delicate balance between microbes and humans, and the changes that result in the emergence of infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance. The case study approach covers such topics as vaccines, toxins, biodefense, and infections including Legionnaire’s disease, tuberculosis, Helicobacter pylori, and plague.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The interactions between viruses and prokaryotes play a key role in shaping microbiomes. However, little is known about the factors influencing host-virus interaction networks, especially when it comes to host factors. To close this gap, researchers constructed a host-provirus network out of over 7,000 species-level prokaryote genomes from many environments. Proviruses are virus genomes that have been integrated into the host genome, allowing researchers to detect them from available genomic datasets. Using this host-provirus network, the researchers then calculated the host interaction specialization, which quantifies how specialized a given host is in relation to the available interacting virus partners. Broadly, fast growing prokaryotes showed less virus specificity than slow growers. This negative growth rate-specialization relationship was widespread across the Earth’s microbiomes..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The question of whether life exists outside our planet has captivated our attention for decades. In order to understand whether life could thrive in extraterrestrial environments, researchers turn to unique locations on Earth. Analogue sites – places resembling extraterrestrial environments – can help answer questions about what types of life could live in space. A recent project – Mars Analogues for Space Exploration (MASE) – examined microbes inhabiting representative space-like environments. Researchers isolated microbes from sites including permafrost, salt mines, acidic lakes and rivers, and sulfur springs and using metagenomics, they evaluated the proportions and characteristics of these unique microbes. They successfully identified 15 high-quality genomes, pinpointing specific microbial functions enriched in MASE sites. Compared to more moderate environments, MASE-residing microorganisms expressed genes that allowed them to withstand physical and chemical pressure..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Urbanization is rapidly transforming communities around the globe. It could be doing the same to the microbial communities that inhabit the human gut. A new study examines how, in China, urbanization and other health factors are affecting gut microbes from the third domain of life: archaea. Though smaller in number and distinct from the bacteria and fungi also found in the gut, archaea are revealing to be just as important to human health. In this study, researchers studied archaea in 792 healthy adult volunteers from 5 regions in China. In particular, how these archaea profiles were linked to 119 variables, including urban residence, ethnicity, lifestyle, and diet. Results showed that geographical region had the strongest effect on archaea composition—followed by ethnicity and urban residence. Urban residence, for example, was associated with lower archaea numbers and diversity..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The rumen is the largest compartment of the ruminant forestomach and houses a complex microbiome. That microbiome greatly influences gut energy harvesting capacity. Improving our understanding of the mechanisms that influence energy harvesting capacity could be used to optimize ruminant feed efficiency and management. Thus, researchers recently examined temporal ecological interactions at the plant-biofilm interface by incubating fresh perennial ryegrass in cattle rumens and analyzing the bacterial diversity and gene expression at several time points. Network analysis identified two sub-microbiomes. They represented the primary (<4h) and secondary (>4h) colonization phases. Several of the most transcriptionally active microbial families didn't interact with either sub-microbiome, which suggests non-cooperative behavior. Conversely, the putative keystone families of each sub-microbiome had low transcriptional activity..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Fresh water flows from rivers to estuaries and then to the sea, creating a salinity gradient as it meets the salt water of the ocean. While this salinity gradient is likely to have profound effects on the organisms that call these habitats home, its impact on microbial communities is far from clear. To fill this gap, researchers recently used genomic, transcriptomic, and geochemical data to examine microbial variation in both benthic and planktonic environments along a river-to-sea continuum. They observed a distinct increase in osmoregulation-related gene expression with increasing salinity and noted a prevalence of phosphate-acquisition activities among microorganisms inhabiting the freshwater zone, likely resulting from phosphate limitation, while carbon-, nitrogen-, and sulfur-cycling processes became dominant in brackish water, due to higher nutrient levels. In these brackish waters, photosynthesis was mainly conducted by cryptomonads in the water column and diatoms in the sediment..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.