MODERN METHODS FOR ESTIMATING SOIL MICROBIAL BIOMASS AND DIVERSITY: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH

摘要

The burgeoning of techniques available and the ability to process much larger volumes of sample have led to a step jump in our understanding of the diversity and function of the soil microbial community, in the last ten years. As Andren and Balandreau have pointed out, "these recent advances have revealed a high diversity even at very small scales", but make traditional Linnean approaches to classification and interpretation increasingly problematic in the genetically promiscuous world of the microorganism. We have many of the tools that we need to answer not only applied questions of the nature "what is the effect of compound x on population y, and how might I ameliorate it", but more fundamental questions of relationships between species diversity and functional redundancy, evolutionary adaptation and its mechanisms, patch dynamics, ecosystem architecture, and feedback between biotic and abiotic components. We may be close to providing definitive answers to many of these questions. The fact that we are studying microbial populations capable of producing successive generations in the course of a day gives us a distinct advantage over our colleagues working in animal and plant ecology.