Advanced Online Publication

Review

Microbial diversity and the genetic nature of microbial species

Mark Achtman & Michael Wagner

This Review summarizes contemporary approaches for defining species in Bacteria and Archaea and contrasts these approaches with various reports on microbial population genetic patterns. The authors conclude that contemporary method-based approaches lack a theoretical definition and new approaches are needed that should be guided by a method-free species concept that is based on cohesive evolutionary forces.

Advanced Online Publication

Review

The surprisingly diverse ways that prokaryotes move

Ken F. Jarrell & Mark J. McBride

Bacteria and archaea have found many solutions to the problem of how to move in liquids and on solid surfaces. Although the use of a rotary flagellum in bacteria is the best-studied mode of bacterial movement, spirochaetes constrain their flagella in the periplasm, some bacteria move using type IV pili, cyanobacteria use surface spicules and others glide on surfaces without using appendages.

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News and Analysis

Genome watch:

Overtake in reverse gear

Disease watch

In the news

Current Issue

Research Highlights

Environmental microbiology:

A drop in the ocean

Bacterial physiology:

Double trouble

Advanced Online Publication

Review

The ecology and biotechnology of sulphate-reducing bacteria

Gerard Muyzer & Alfons J. M. Stams

Sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB) are anaerobic microorganisms that can use sulphate as a terminal electron acceptor. These organisms are ubiquitous in anoxic habitats, where they have an important role in both the sulphur and carbon cycles. Muyzer and Stams provide an overview of the diversity, physiology and distribution of SRB and their applications to environmental biotechnology.

Animation

Microbiology in motion

Nature Reviews Microbiology Animation on Microbial Intracellular Pathogens

Nature Reviews Microbiology invites you to explore the microscopic world of microbial invaders and take an animated tour featuring the lifestyles of three disease-causing bacteria: Listeria monocytogenes, Legionella pneumophila and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.