Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR), University of Porto, Terminal de Cruzeiros do Porto de Leixoes, Avenida General Norton de Matos, S/N, 4450-208 Matosinhos, Portugal.
Department of Bioengineering, Institute for Bioengineering and Biosciences (iBB), Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, Av. Rovisco Pais 1049-001, Lisbon, Portugal.
FEMS Microbiol Ecol. 2021 Jan 8;97(1). doi: 10.1093/femsec/fiaa227.
Our ability to describe the highly diverse pool of low abundance populations present in natural microbial communities is increasing at an unprecedented pace. Yet we currently lack an integrative view of the key taxa, functions and metabolic activity which make-up this communal pool, usually referred to as the 'rare biosphere', across the domains of life. In this context, this review examines the microbial rare biosphere in its broader sense, providing an historical perspective on representative studies which enabled to bridge the concept from macroecology to microbial ecology. It then addresses our current knowledge of the prokaryotic rare biosphere, and covers emerging insights into the ecology, taxonomy and evolution of low abundance microeukaryotic, viral and host-associated communities. We also review recent methodological advances and provide a synthetic overview on how the rare biosphere fits into different conceptual models used to explain microbial community assembly mechanisms, composition and function.
我们描述自然微生物群落中存在的高度多样化的低丰度种群的能力正以前所未有的速度提高。然而，我们目前缺乏对关键分类群、功能和代谢活性的综合认识，这些分类群、功能和代谢活性构成了这个公共群体，通常被称为“稀有生物圈”，涵盖了生命的各个领域。在这方面，本综述从更广泛的意义上考察了微生物稀有生物圈，提供了有代表性的研究的历史视角，这些研究使这一概念从宏观生态学扩展到了微生物生态学。然后，它讨论了我们目前对原核稀有生物圈的了解，并涵盖了对低丰度真核生物、病毒和宿主相关群落的生态学、分类学和进化的新见解。我们还回顾了最近的方法学进展，并综合概述了稀有生物圈如何适应用于解释微生物群落组装机制、组成和功能的不同概念模型。
