Progress on microbial species diversity, community assembly and functional traits

Abstract

Background: Microbes, collectively bacteria, fungi, archaea, and viruses, are the organisms that are widely distributed on earth, with a huge number of individuals and high diversity of species and genes. In order to adapt to various habitats, microbes have developed many life strategies, such as saprotroph, parasite and symbiont, and consequently contribute broadly to biogeochemical cycles, ecosystem succession and stability, environmental remediation, and human health. Research on microbial diversity had been limited by traditional monitoring techniques. Recently, benefiting from the development of high-throughput sequencing techniques and bioinformatics, understanding of microbial diversity has been significantly advanced. Results: This study reviews the progress on the diversity distribution pattern and maintenance, community assembly and functional trait of microbes. Altitudinal distribution patterns and drivers of bacterial, archaeal, and fungal diversity have been demonstrated. Selection, dispersal, speciation and drift processes are important for the community assembly of bacteria, archaea, and fungi. Bacteria and fungi are diverse in functional traits, such as morphology, physiology and biochemistry, growth and propagation, dispersal and genome. Future study in microbial diversity should focus on fungal metagenomics, relationship between microbial diversity and ecosystem function, and ecosystem function of microbial interaction network.