environment, microbiology

Aridity appears to configure landscapes with a greater diversity of plant species that rely on symbiotic bacteria for nitrogen.

The compounds responsible for the earthy smell of recent rain are produced by a wide variety of bacteria and fungi. Recent research sheds light on why microbes bother.

A study finds that not only did aquatic bacteria thrive when chemicals washed from degrading plastic were introduced into lake water, they also broke down organic matter more efficiently.

Scientists in Canada trace how aquatic communities change as Quebec’s Romaine River flows into the sea.

Methane production, likely achieved by a diverse group of methanogenic archaea, occurs at similar rates in both alive and dead seagrasses, a study reports. The findings highlight the potential environmental impact of seagrasses declining globally.

Analysis of data from a new satellite sensor helps researchers detect large patches of bioluminescence in the oceans faster than ever before.

Turkish officials are scrambling to clean up a massive, gooey plankton bloom that’s sliming the country’s ports and could suffocate the area’s marine ecosystems.

Projects aimed at collecting big data about the ocean’s tiniest life forms continue to expand our view of the seas.

In Northern California, the proportion of ticks infected with the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi was the same in shrubland along beaches as in woodland habitats.

After a nearly 30-year hunt, researchers have shown that a neurotoxin generated by cyanobacteria on invasive plants is responsible for eagle and waterbird deaths from vacuolar myelinopathy.

Biological production of this greenhouse gas, once thought to be the reserve of anaerobic microbes, occurs in these widespread, photosynthesizing cyanobacteria.

Neither the maternal microbiome nor housing conditions appear to permanently alter which microbes remain in the animals.

The lab animals had more natural microbiomes seeded by wild mice, unlike conventional models that are kept in sterile conditions.

Tens of thousands of hogs are being slaughtered to stop its spread.

Viruses are responsible for the majority of archaea deaths on the deep ocean floors, scientists show.

Researchers devise new techniques to facilitate growing bacteria collected from the environment.