Stable Isotope Probing and Related Technologies


Book Description

The ideal starting point for investigating, developing, and implementing stable isotope technologies. • Guides researchers through basic, tested, and proven protocols including DNA, RNA, protein, and phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) SIP, from concept and history through detailed methodology, troubleshooting, and interpretation to optimal and future uses. • Explores important and emerging applications of SIP in environmental microbiology, ranging from bioremediation and gene mining to carbon tracking and gut microflora function. • Examines explorations of further elegant isotope labeling technologies such as Raman-FISH, NanoSIMS, and isotope arrays. • Serves as a valuable resource for environmental microbiology students and researchers and genomics, biotechnology, and medical microbiology professionals.




Stable Isotope Probing


Book Description

This book provides definitive methods to perform stable isotope probing (SIP) experiments, covering a wide spectrum of stable isotope techniques used in microbial ecology, such as methods to target and analyze labeled DNA, rRNA, mRNA, protein, and PLFA. Protocols to study stable isotope fractionation by microbial pathways, the analysis of labeled communities with Raman microscopy, Chip-SIM, as well as quantitative SIP (qSIP) and high-resolution SIP (HR-SIP) are also featured. Written for the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials and reagents, step-by-step, readily reproducible laboratory protocols, and tips on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls. Authoritative and practical, Stable Isotope Probing: Methods and Protocols provides readers with up-to-date protocols ranging from basic to the most sophisticated applications of SIP and will benefit anyone pursuing this exciting area of study.




Food Webs


Book Description

This book presents new approaches to studying food webs, using practical and policy examples to demonstrate the theory behind ecosystem management decisions.




Environmental Microbiology


Book Description

New and expanded for its second edition, Environmental Microbiology: From Genomes to Biogeochemistry¸ Second Edition, is a timely update to a classic text filled with ideas, connections, and concepts that advance an in-depth understanding of this growing segment of microbiology. Core principles are highlighted with an emphasis on the logic of the science and new methods-driven discoveries. Numerous up-to-date examples and applications boxes provide tangible reinforcement of material covered. Study questions at the end of each chapter require students to utilize analytical and quantitative approaches, to define and defend arguments, and to apply microbiological paradigms to their personal interests. Essay assignments and related readings stimulate student inquiry and serve as focal points for teachers to launch classroom discussions. A companion website with downloadable artwork and answers to study questions is also available. Environmental Microbiology: From Genomes to Biogeochemistry, Second Edition, offers a coherent and comprehensive treatment of this dynamic, emerging field, building bridges between basic biology, evolution, genomics, ecology, biotechnology, climate change, and the environmental sciences.




Cellulases


Book Description

Cellulase refers to a class of enzymes produced chiefly by fungi, bacteria, and protozoans that catalyse cellulolysis. This volume covers subjects such as 'the DNSA reducing assay for measuring cellulases', 'measuring processivity' and 'in situ cellulose detection with carbohydrate-binding modules'.




Marine Nitrogen Fixation


Book Description

This book aims to serve as a centralized reference document for students and researchers interested in aspects of marine nitrogen fixation. Although nitrogen is a critical element in both terrestrial and aquatic productivity, and nitrogen fixation is a key process that balances losses due to denitrification in both environments, most resources on the subject focuses on the biochemistry and microbiology of such processes and the organisms involved in the terrestrial environment on symbiosis in terrestrial systems, or on largely ecological aspects in the marine environment. This book is intended to provide an overview of N2 fixation research for marine researchers, while providing a reference on marine research for researchers in other fields, including terrestrial N2 fixation. This book bridges this knowledge gap for both specialists and non-experts, and provides an in-depth overview of the important aspects of nitrogen fixation as it relates to the marine environment. This resource will be useful for researchers in the specialized field, but also useful for scientists in other disciplines who are interested in the topic. It would provide a possible text for upper division classes or graduate seminars.




Climate Change and Microbiome Dynamics


Book Description

The book provides an overview relevant to various biological mechanisms that regulate carbon exchanges between the major components and their response to climate change. Climate change has a significant impact on people's lives, energy demand, food security, etc. The soil microbial ecology is vital for assessing terrestrial and aquatic carbon cycles and climate feedback. However, the primary concern is the complexity of the soil microbial community and its severely affected functions due to the climate and other global changes. Global warming comprises an assessment of the dynamic interactions and feedback between microbes, plants, and their physical environment due to climate change. The book will address the need to use a multifactor experimental approach to understand how soil microorganisms and their activities adapt to climate change and the implications of carbon cycle feedback. The most pressing concern is a clearer understanding of the biological factors that regulate carbon exchanges between land, oceans, and the atmosphere and how these exchanges will respond to climate change via climate–ecosystem feedbacks, which could augment or quell regional and global climate change. Terrestrial ecosystems play an important role in climate feedback as they produce and absorb greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides. They also strongly contribute to storing enormous amounts of carbon in living vegetation and soils, rendering them a significant global carbon sink. If climate change projections are realistic, such a rapid increase in carbon loss from soil could exacerbate the soil carbon cycle feedback. The book will determine the role of microbial feedback in regulating soil-land-atmosphere carbon exchange under changing climatic conditions at the regional and global levels. The current book will also focus on recent research designed to use beneficial microbes such as plant growth-promoting microorganisms, fungi, endophytic microbes, and others to improve understanding of the interaction and their potential role in promoting advanced management for sustainable agricultural solutions. Understanding the influence on the native microbiome, such as the distribution of methanogens and methanotrophs, nutritional content, microbial biomass, and other factors, is becoming increasingly crucial to establishing climate-resilient agriculture.




Current Developments in Biotechnology and Bioengineering


Book Description

Current Developments in Biotechnology and Bioengineering: Biological Treatment of Industrial Effluents provides extensive coverage of new developments, state-of-the-art technologies, and potential future trends in data-based scientific knowledge and advanced information on the role and application of environmental biotechnology and engineering in the treatment of industrial effluents. These treatment processes have been broadly classified under aerobic and anaerobic processes which determines the scope and level of pollutant removal. Chapters in this volume review the most recent developments and perspectives at different environmental cleanup operation scales. - Outlines available biochemical processes for the treatment of solid industrial waste - Covers aerobic and anaerobic treatments, their mechanisms, and selection criteria - Highlights specific industrial applications, such as anammox processes




Recent Advances in Symbiosis Research: Integrative Approaches


Book Description

Traditionally, symbiosis research has been undertaken by researchers working independently of one another and often focused on a few cases of bipartite host-symbiont interactions. New model systems are emerging that will enable us to fill fundamental gaps in symbiosis research and theory, focusing on a broad range of symbiotic interactions and including a variety of multicellular hosts and their complex microbial communities. In this Research Topic, we invited researchers to contribute their work on diverse symbiotic networks, since there are a large variety of symbioses with major roles in the proper functioning of terrestrial or aquatic ecosystems, and we wished the Topic to provide a venue for communicating findings across diverse taxonomic groups. A synthesis of recent investigations in symbiosis can impact areas such as agriculture, where a basic understanding of plant-microbe symbiosis will provide foundational information on the increasingly important issue of nitrogen fixation; climate change, where anthropogenic factors are threatening the survival of marine symbiotic ecosystems such as coral reefs; animal and human health, where unbalances in host microbiomes are being increasingly associated with a wide range of diseases; and biotechnology, where process optimization can be achieved through optimization of symbiotic partnerships. Overall, our vision was to produce a volume of works that will help define general principles of symbiosis within a new conceptual framework, in the road to finally establish symbiology as an overdue central discipline of biological science.




The Impact of Food Bioactives on Health


Book Description

“Infogest” (Improving Health Properties of Food by Sharing our Knowledge on the Digestive Process) is an EU COST action/network in the domain of Food and Agriculture that will last for 4 years from April 4, 2011. Infogest aims at building an open international network of institutes undertaking multidisciplinary basic research on food digestion gathering scientists from different origins (food scientists, gut physiologists, nutritionists...). The network gathers 70 partners from academia, corresponding to a total of 29 countries. The three main scientific goals are: Identify the beneficial food components released in the gut during digestion; Support the effect of beneficial food components on human health; Promote harmonization of currently used digestion models Infogest meetings highlighted the need for a publication that would provide researchers with an insight into the advantages and disadvantages associated with the use of respective in vitro and ex vivo assays to evaluate the effects of foods and food bioactives on health. Such assays are particularly important in situations where a large number of foods/bioactives need to be screened rapidly and in a cost effective manner in order to ultimately identify lead foods/bioactives that can be the subject of in vivo assays. The book is an asset to researchers wishing to study the health benefits of their foods and food bioactives of interest and highlights which in vitro/ex vivo assays are of greatest relevance to their goals, what sort of outputs/data can be generated and, as noted above, highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the various assays. It is also an important resource for undergraduate students in the ‘food and health’ arena.