Mammalian gut microbiomes profoundly influence host fitness, but the processes that drive
the evolution of host-microbiome systems are poorly understood. Recent studies suggest …

Interest in the role of the microbiome in human health has burgeoned over the past decade
with the advent of new technologies for interrogating complex microbial communities. The …

The evolutionary origins of the bacterial lineages that populate the human gut are unknown.
Here we show that multiple lineages of the predominant bacterial taxa in the gut arose via …

The sterile womb paradigm is an enduring premise in biology that human infants are born
sterile. Recent studies suggest that infants incorporate an initial microbiome before birth and …

The global diversity of Bacteria and Archaea, the most ancient and most widespread forms
of life on Earth, is a subject of intense controversy. This controversy stems largely from the …

The advent of relatively inexpensive tools for characterizing microbial communities has led
to an explosion of research exploring the diversity, ecology, and evolution of microbe-host …

The frequent discrepancy between direct microscopic counts and numbers of culturable
bacteria from environmental samples is just one of several indications that we currently …

Because a natural entity “species” cannot be recognized as a group of strains that is
genetically well separated from its phylogenetic neighbors, a pragmatic approach was taken …

A definitive guide to the depth and breadth of the ecological sciences, revised and updated
The revised and updated fifth edition of Ecology: From Individuals to Ecosystems–now in full …

Marine microbial communities are engines of globally important processes, such as the
marine carbon, nitrogen and sulphur cycles. Recent data on the structures of these …