Ward David M
Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59715-3120, USA.
Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek. 2006 Nov;90(4):309-24. doi: 10.1007/s10482-006-9090-x. Epub 2006 Oct 25.
Interactions with Gijs Kuenen and other Dutch scientists have led my lab to fundamental insights into the composition, structure and function of a hot spring cyanobacterial mat community that should influence our thinking about all microbial communities. By focusing on the distribution of molecular sequence variants of predominant mat phototrophs, we have discovered that small-scale sequence variation can be ecologically meaningful. By applying novel cultivation approaches, we have been able to obtain genetically relevant community members and thus to test the hypothesis that closely related sequence variants arose via adaptive evolutionary radiation. By applying the analytical tools of organic geochemistry we have gained insight into the metabolisms of major phototrophic members of the mat community as well as interactions between phototrophic guilds. These observations challenge traditional paradigms about prokaryotic species and cause us to consider evolutionary ecology theory as we develop genome-based methods for high-resolution analysis of the species-like fundamental units comprising microbial communities, and for investigating how such units coordinate the physiological activities within guilds of the community.
与吉斯·库嫩及其他荷兰科学家的合作，使我的实验室对温泉蓝藻菌席群落的组成、结构和功能有了深刻的认识，这些认识将影响我们对所有微生物群落的看法。通过关注主要菌席光合生物分子序列变体的分布，我们发现小规模的序列变异可能具有生态学意义。通过应用新颖的培养方法，我们得以获得与遗传相关的群落成员，从而检验了这样一个假设，即密切相关的序列变体是通过适应性进化辐射产生的。通过应用有机地球化学的分析工具，我们深入了解了菌席群落主要光合成员的代谢以及光合生物类群之间的相互作用。这些观察结果挑战了关于原核生物物种的传统范式，并促使我们在开发基于基因组的方法以对构成微生物群落的类物种基本单元进行高分辨率分析，以及研究这些单元如何协调群落类群内的生理活动时，考虑进化生态学理论。
