Background Small vagile eukaryotic organisms, which comprise a large proportion of the
Earth's biodiversity, have traditionally been thought to lack the extent of population …

Microbial biogeography studies expend much effort in determining whether environmental
selection or stochastic processes related to dispersal are more important in shaping …

Microbes are usually believed to have cosmopolitan distributions. However, for estimating
the global distributions of microorganisms, discriminating among cryptic species and …

The diversity of eukaryotic macroorganisms such as animals and plants usually declines
with increasing elevation and latitude. By contrast, the community structure of prokaryotes …

Our knowledge on microbial biogeography depends on the way we define and study
diversity. In contrast to most microbes, some protist lineages have conspicuous structures …

▪ Abstract Since the first estimate of prokaryotic abundance in soil was published,
researchers have attempted to assess the abundance and distribution of species and relate …

Bacteria and fungi are of uttermost importance in determining environmental and host
functioning. Despite close interactions between animals, plants, their associated …

Diversity is the hard currency of ecologists. Various statistics have been developed for
summarizing the diversity of an ecological community. A commonly adopted summary …

The ability to quantify the number and kinds of microorganisms within a community is
fundamental to the understanding of the structure and function of an ecosystem. The simple …

Very little is known about the structure of microbial communities, despite their abundance
and importance to ecosystem processes. Recent work suggests that bacterial biodiversity …