Populations are fundamental units of ecology and evolution, but can we define them for
bacteria and archaea in a biologically meaningful way? Here, we review why population …

Highlights•Microbes form dense aggregates, where interactions may drive community
function.•Biological interactions can lead to spatial segregation or local mixing of …

Microbial communities frequently invade one another as a whole, a phenomenon known as
community coalescence. Despite its potential importance for the assembly, dynamics, and …

Microorganisms frequently migrate from one ecosystem to another. Yet, despite the potential
importance of this process in modulating the environment and the microbial ecosystem, our …

Recent work has shown that dispersal has an important role in shaping microbial
communities. However, little is known about how dispersed bacteria cope with new …

Little is known about the evolutionary processes that structure and maintain microbial
diversity because, until recently, it was difficult to explore individual-level patterns of …

Early life microbial colonizers shape and support the immature vertebrate immune system.
Microbial colonization relies on the vertical route via parental provisioning and the horizontal …

Microbes in nature often live in dense and diverse communities exhibiting a variety of spatial
structures. Microbial range expansion is a universal ecological process that enables …

Biotic homogenization, ie, the increase in community similarity through time or space, is a
commonly observed response following conversion of native ecosystems to agriculture, but …

Introduction Rapidly advancing technologies and accumulating information about microbial
communities across the globe allow the quantification of microbial properties and functions …