Soil microbiology articles within Nature

Featured

  • Article |

    Structural, functional and localization studies reveal that Geobacter sulfurreducens pili cannot behave as microbial nanowires, instead functioning in a similar way to secretion pseudopili to export cytochrome nanowires that are essential for extracellular electron transfer.

    • Yangqi Gu
    • , Vishok Srikanth
    •  & Nikhil S. Malvankar

  • Letter |

    Metagenomic and soil microcosm analyses identify abundant biosynthetic gene clusters in genomes of microorganisms from a northern Californian grassland ecosystem that provide a potential source for the future development of bacterial natural products.

    • Alexander Crits-Christoph
    • , Spencer Diamond
    •  & Jillian F. Banfield

  • Letter |

    Until now, the oxidation steps necessary for complete nitrification had always been observed to occur in two separate microorganisms in a cross-feeding interaction; here, together with the study by Daims et al., van Kessel et al. report the enrichment and characterization of Nitrospira species that encode all of the enzymes necessary to catalyse complete nitrification, a phenotype referred to as ‘comammox’ (for complete ammonia oxidation).

    • Maartje A. H. J. van Kessel
    • , Daan R. Speth
    •  & Sebastian Lücker

  • Article |

    The anaerobic oxidation of methane in marine sediments is performed by consortia of methane-oxidizing archaea and sulfate-reducing bacteria; an examination of the role of interspecies spatial positioning on single cell activity reveals that interspecies electron transfer may overcome the requirement for close spatial proximity, a proposition supported by large multi-haem cytochromes in ANME-2 genomes as well as redox-active electron microscopy staining.

    • Shawn E. McGlynn
    • , Grayson L. Chadwick
    •  & Victoria J. Orphan

  • Letter |

    A multi-omics approach, integrating metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and metaproteomics, determines the phylogenetic composition of the microbial community and assesses its functional potential and activity along a thaw transition from intact permafrost to thermokast bog.

    • Jenni Hultman
    • , Mark P. Waldrop
    •  & Janet K. Jansson

  • Letter |

    Roots of land plants are populated by a specific microbiota capable of modulating plant growth and development; here large-scale sequencing analysis shows that the bacterial community inhabiting Arabidopsis roots is influenced by soil type and plant genotype, and that plant cell-wall features serve as colonization cue for a subcommunity of the root microbiota.

    • Davide Bulgarelli
    • , Matthias Rott
    •  & Paul Schulze-Lefert

  • News & Views |

    In tropical rainforests, tree seedlings growing close to their parent are more likely to die. This mortality, caused by soil organisms, helps to explain the coexistence and relative abundance of species.

    • Owen T. Lewis

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