Bacteria are an important part of every ecosystem that they inhabit on Earth. Environmental
microbiologists usually focus on a few dominant bacterial groups, neglecting less abundant …

Highlights•Alpha and beta carboxysomes differ in composition, assembly, and
evolution.•Alphas appear to co-assemble shell and cargo proteins; betas assemble inside …

A review of algal (including cyanobacterial) symbionts associated with lichen-forming fungi
is presented. General aspects of their biology relevant to lichen symbioses are summarized …

Gene duplication followed by neo-or sub-functionalization deeply impacts the evolution of
protein families and is regarded as the main source of adaptive functional novelty in …

Horizontal gene transfer is important in the evolution of bacterial and archaeal genomes. An
interesting genetic exchange process is carried out by diverse phage-like gene transfer …

Horizontal or Lateral Gene Transfer (HGT or LGT) is the transmission of portions of genomic
DNA between organisms through a process decoupled from vertical inheritance. In the …

High and changing salt concentrations represent major abiotic factors limiting the growth of
microorganisms. During their long evolution, cyanobacteria have adapted to aquatic habitats …

The traditional genus Aphanizomenon comprises a group of filamentous nitrogen-fixing
cyanobacteria of which several memebers are able to develop blooms and to produce toxic …

The contribution of horizontal gene transfer to evolution has been controversial since it was
suggested to be a force driving evolution in the microbial world. In this paper, I review the …

Mercuric mercury (Hg [II]) is a highly toxic and mobile element that is likely to have had a
pronounced and adverse effect on biology since Earth's oxygenation∼ 2.4 billion years ago …