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Microbial ecology (or environmental microbiology) is the ecology of microorganisms: their relationship with one another and with their environment. It concerns the three major domains of life— Eukaryota , Archaea , and Bacteria —as well as viruses . [ 2 ]
Microbes are important in human culture and health in many ways, serving to ferment foods and treat sewage, and to produce fuel, enzymes, and other bioactive compounds. Microbes are essential tools in biology as model organisms and have been put to use in biological warfare and bioterrorism. Microbes are a vital component of fertile soil.
It is also important for understanding the cycling of nutrients in the environment, and the behavior of microorganisms or actors in various environments. In humans , gut microecology is the study of the microbial ecology of the human gut which includes gut microbiota composition, its metabolic activity, and the interactions between the ...
Access to the previously invisible world opened the eyes and the minds of the researchers of the seventeenth century. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek investigated diverse bacteria of various shapes, fungi, and protozoa, which he called animalcules, mainly from water, mud, and dental plaque samples, and discovered biofilms as a first indication of microorganisms interacting within complex communities.
Bacteria play a vital role in many stages of the nutrient cycle by recycling nutrients and the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere. The nutrient cycle includes the decomposition of dead bodies ; bacteria are responsible for the putrefaction stage in this process.
Microbiology (from Ancient Greek μῑκρος (mīkros) 'small' βίος (bíos) 'life' and -λογία () 'study of') is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being of unicellular (single-celled), multicellular (consisting of complex cells), or acellular (lacking cells).
Microbes are highly abundant, diverse and have an important role in the ecological system. Yet as of 2010 [update] , it was estimated that the total global environmental DNA sequencing effort had produced less than 1 percent of the total DNA found in a liter of seawater or a gram of soil, [ 86 ] and the specific interactions between microbes ...
Microbes are being studied and used to degrade organic and even nuclear waste pollution (see Deinococcus radiodurans) and assist in environmental cleanup. An application of geomicrobiology is bioleaching , the use of microbes to extract metals from mine waste.