Zhu Yong-Guan, Zhu Dong, Rillig Matthias C, Yang Yunfeng, Chu Haiyan, Chen Qing-Lin, Penuelas Josep, Cui Hui-Ling, Gillings Michael
Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment Chinese Academy of Sciences Xiamen China.
State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Centre for Eco-environmental Sciences Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing China.
mLife. 2023 Jan 11;2(1):2-10. doi: 10.1002/mlf2.12054. eCollection 2023 Mar.
The microbiome contributes to multiple ecosystem functions and services through its interactions with a complex environment and other organisms. To date, however, most microbiome studies have been carried out on individual hosts or particular environmental compartments. This greatly limits a comprehensive understanding of the processes and functions performed by the microbiome and its dynamics at an ecosystem level. We propose that the theory and tools of ecosystem ecology be used to investigate the connectivity of microorganisms and their interactions with the biotic and abiotic environment within entire ecosystems and to examine their contributions to ecosystem services. Impacts of natural and anthropogenic stressors on ecosystems will likely cause cascading effects on the microbiome and lead to unpredictable outcomes, such as outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases or changes in mutualistic interactions. Despite enormous advances in microbial ecology, we are yet to study microbiomes of ecosystems as a whole. Doing so would establish a new framework for microbiome study: Ecosystem Microbiome Science. The advent and application of molecular and genomic technologies, together with data science and modeling, will accelerate progress in this field.
微生物群落通过与复杂环境及其他生物的相互作用，对多种生态系统功能和服务做出贡献。然而，迄今为止，大多数微生物群落研究都是在个体宿主或特定环境区域中进行的。这极大地限制了我们对微生物群落在生态系统层面所执行的过程、功能及其动态变化的全面理解。我们建议利用生态系统生态学的理论和工具，研究整个生态系统内微生物的连通性及其与生物和非生物环境的相互作用，并审视它们对生态系统服务的贡献。自然和人为压力源对生态系统的影响可能会对微生物群落产生级联效应，并导致不可预测的结果，如新发传染病的爆发或互利共生相互作用的改变。尽管微生物生态学取得了巨大进展，但我们尚未对整个生态系统的微生物群落进行研究。这样做将为微生物群落研究建立一个新框架：生态系统微生物群落科学。分子和基因组技术以及数据科学和建模的出现与应用，将加速该领域的进展。
