Spatial Organization Plasticity as an Adaptive Driver of Surface Microbial Communities

Abstract

Biofilms are dynamic habitats which constantly evolve in response to environmental fluctuations and thereby constitute remarkable survival strategies for microorganisms. The modulation of biofilm functional properties is largely governed by the active remodeling of their three-dimensional structure and involves an arsenal of microbial self-produced components and interconnected mechanisms. The production of matrix components, the spatial reorganization of ecological interactions, the generation of physiological heterogeneity, the regulation of motility, the production of actives enzymes are for instance some of the processes enabling such spatial organization plasticity. In this contribution, we discussed the foundations of architectural plasticity as an adaptive driver of biofilms through the review of the different microbial strategies involved. Moreover, the possibility to harness such characteristics to sculpt biofilm structure as an attractive approach to control their functional properties, whether beneficial or deleterious, is also discussed.

Pore-Scale Monitoring of the Effect of Microarchitecture on Fungal Growth in a Two-Dimensional Soil-Like Micromodel

“…An estimated 1.5 million species of fungi are present in terrestrial ecosystems (Hawksworth, 2001) where they fulfill a wide array of essential ecological functions, in particular in the global carbon cycle (Cromack and Caldwell, 1992). Their role in soil-plant feedback processes in the rhizosphere is widely regarded as key to achieving the estimated 100% increase in overall food production that will be needed in the next 25 years, amidst decreasing availability of suitable land and already overexploited surface-or groundwater resources (e.g., Sposito, 2013;Baveye, 2015;Baveye et al, 2018).…”

The (Bio)Chemistry of Soil Humus and Humic Substances: Why Is the “New View” Still Considered Novel After More Than 80 Years?

“…Most humics research continued to describe organic matter in an averaged, macroscopic sense, restricting our ability to understand connections between the biotic and abiotic components of soils and soil functions. While each of the individual disciplinary perspectives has been explored further, sometimes in great depth, reluctance, intransigence, or disciplinary inertia continue to prevent researchers from putting the pieces of the puzzle together to finally allow us to understand in detail how microorganisms influence the creation and transformation humic substances, or the factors that control these processes (Baveye et al, 2018).…”

“…The adoption of this approach has had the merit to generate macroscopic or bulk representations of community composition that satisfy demands for reproducible quantitative measures. However, during the last two decades, this perspective, which has attracted growing criticism (e.g., O'Donnell et al, 2007;Baveye, 2009;Baveye et al, 2018;Young and Bengough, 2018), has arguably contributed in a significant manner to thwart interdisciplinary research efforts dealing with soil microorganisms, and has led microbiologists into the same trap that has constrained progress by soil chemists and physicists working at the macroscopic scale.…”

“…And yet, in spite of the clear deficiencies of our educational systems, there appear to be reasons for hope. Not only has a group of predominantly young researchers recently called for increasing emphasis on interdisciplinary research in soil science (Baveye et al, 2018), but this call has been rapidly followed by significant steps along this path. Vidal et al (2018) have combined different spectroscopic and microscopic techniques to simultaneously gain information about the distribution of minerals and biomass in the vicinity of roots.…”

Book Review: Pedometrics: How Relevant Is It to the Research on Soil Processes?

“…Chapter 6 deals with the scaling characteristics of soil structure, and presents in detail some of the measurement techniques (e.g., Xray computed tomography) and mathematical tools (fractal geometry, multifractal measures, Minkowski functionals) that have been used in the past two decades to characterize the geometry and connectivity of the pore space in soils, as well as the architecture (formerly referred to as the "structure") of the solid phase. These different topics, as well as the upscaling of soil characteristics to the macroscopic scale, remain extremely challenging at the moment (e.g., Baveye et al, 2018), and researchers who are confronted with them in the study of a wide range of soil processes will find this chapter an especially valuable source of information. Another chapter, Chapter 17 (Rossiter et al, 2018) also presents material that readers of this section of our journal are likely to find particularly interesting.…”