Category Archives: community ecology

Of microbes and men: Testing the neutral theory with the human microbiome

Posted on 22 Aug, 2016 by Kelle Freel

There is no doubt that one of the hottest current topics in microbiology revolves around the human microbiome. There have been a suite of recent studies we’ve highlighted, on organisms ranging from bees and mice, to humans. A quick google scholar search identifies … Continue reading →

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Understanding the pieces of all those meeces: characterizing mice gut microbiota

Posted on 12 Aug, 2016 by Kelle Freel

In an age where a tremendous amount of data is generated, this week has seen some moves towards providing open access to extensive data sets. These attempts have been in the realm of chemistry as well as microbiology, where in a … Continue reading →

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Understanding diverse microbial communities: An interview with A. Murat Eren (Meren)

Posted on 2 Aug, 2016 by Kelle Freel

It’s clear that microbes play a crucial role in practically every aspect of ecosystems globally. From the deepest, most remote and unexplored regions of the ocean, to the human oral cavity, there are diverse microbial assemblages driving Earth’s biogeochemical cycles. … Continue reading →

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Who’s really riding the subway with you? Characterization of the microbial communities on Boston transport

Posted on 29 Jun, 2016 by Kelle Freel

(Figure modified from Hsu et al., 2016, Boston transport map and wikicommons image of Boston) Understanding the microbes around us is an important challenge to take on. There have been articles covering changes in microbial communities among rural and more … Continue reading →

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Microbes are going to infinity and beyond! Monitoring community changes on a simulated space station

Posted on 8 Jun, 2016 by Kelle Freel

As we’ve discussed previously here, understanding microbes in the natural and built environment around us, has implications related to human health and disease. It has turned out to be pretty tricky to clarify what is going on with our most … Continue reading →

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Data, data everywhere and another tool to use: Taxonomer, a web-tool for metagenomics data analysis

Posted on 26 May, 2016 by Kelle Freel

Because sequencing. With all the affordable genome and metagenome sequencing available, we’ve reached an unprecedented point at which we can profile microbial communities more accurately than ever before. For this reason, it’s essential to develop efficient methods for data analysis. … Continue reading →

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What's all the buzz about? Bees got microbiomes too!

Posted on 11 May, 2016 by Kelle Freel

So I know we are all blabbing about the human microbiome, who isn’t fascinated by the impressive roles tiny microbes have in our lives!? Trying to unravel what exactly our microbial communities do for us, and how they relate to … Continue reading →

Posted in Coevolution, community ecology, evolution, genomics, metagenomics, microbiology | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

New branches on the tree of life

Posted on 12 Apr, 2016 by Kelle Freel

(Trees from Darwin (1837), Haeckel (1866), and Woese (1990)) We’ve come quite a long way since Darwin sketched out his tree in 1837 connecting, with branch tips representing animals and microbes currently in existence and branches and trunks their ancestors. … Continue reading →

Posted in bioinformatics, community ecology, evolution, genomics, metagenomics, microbiology, phylogenetics | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

The dangers of not thinking about the relics

Posted on 31 Mar, 2016 by Kelle Freel

No, I’m not talking about Saint Erik’s skull from his beheading in 1160, which (as it turns out) might just be real. A hot topic in microbiology is a different kind of relic. Amazing developments in microbial ecology in recent years … Continue reading →

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How urbanization might affect the five-second rule

Posted on 24 Feb, 2016 by Kelle Freel

At this point, we know that microbes are everywhere and make up complex communities found all over the place ranging from oceanic hydrothermal vents to lakes, soils, and, yes of course, all over you. It has also become apparent that … Continue reading →

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