Land has a wide variety of uses: agricultural, residential, industrial, and recreational. Microbes play a key role in the terrestrial ecosystem, providing symbiotic relationships with plants. Human use of land has led to the exhaustion of nutrients in soils, contamination of land, and a reduction in biodiversity. Applying our knowledge of microbes will be essential in restoring the biodiversity of affected ecosystems. Greater research into how microbes impact human life on land could all have a positive impact, by increasing crop production, repurposing areas of land and improving microbial biodiversity in soil, land, and water.
Necropsies of sea otters show they died of a virulent form of Toxoplasma infection first detected in mountain lions in Canada.
Read storyAn international research team led by the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) is to search for invisible life in the Galápagos Islands.
Explore the different roles that fungi play in our forests as well as in society.
An international research team reveals a first in-depth look at Omnitrophota – one of the world’s oldest and tiniest bacteria.
The worst wildlife disease in history, chytridiomycosis, began to spread widely in Africa in the year 2000 and may be causing overlooked epizootics, a new study reveals.