Host lifestyle affects human microbiota on daily timescales.

Background: Disturbance to human microbiota may underlie several pathologies. Yet, we lack a comprehensive understanding of how lifestyle affects the dynamics of human-associated microbial communities.

Results: Here, we link over 10,000 longitudinal measurements of human wellness and action to the daily gut and salivary microbiota dynamics of two individuals over the course of one year.

Shape and evolution of the fundamental niche in marine Vibrio.

Hutchinson's fundamental niche, defined by the physical and biological environments in which an organism can thrive in the absence of inter-species interactions, is an important theoretical concept in ecology. However, little is known about the overlap between the fundamental niche and the set of conditions species inhabit in nature, and about natural variation in fundamental niche shape and its change as species adapt to their environment. Here, we develop a custom-made dual gradient apparatus to map a cross-section of the fundamental niche for several marine bacterial species within the genus Vibrio based on their temperature and salinity tolerance, and compare tolerance limits to the environment where these species commonly occur.

Silencing of the violaxanthin de-epoxidase gene in the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum reduces diatoxanthin synthesis and non-photochemical quenching.

Diatoms are a major group of primary producers ubiquitous in all aquatic ecosystems. To protect themselves from photooxidative damage in a fluctuating light climate potentially punctuated with regular excess light exposures, diatoms have developed several photoprotective mechanisms. The xanthophyll cycle (XC) dependent non-photochemical chlorophyll fluorescence quenching (NPQ) is one of the most important photoprotective processes that rapidly regulate photosynthesis in diatoms.

Unlocking short read sequencing for metagenomics.

Background: Different high-throughput nucleic acid sequencing platforms are currently available but a trade-off currently exists between the cost and number of reads that can be generated versus the read length that can be achieved.

Methodology/principal Findings: We describe an experimental and computational pipeline yielding millions of reads that can exceed 200 bp with quality scores approaching that of traditional Sanger sequencing. The method combines an automatable gel-less library construction step with paired-end sequencing on a short-read instrument.

FIRST INDUCED PLASTID GENOME MUTATIONS IN AN ALGA WITH SECONDARY PLASTIDS: psbA MUTATIONS IN THE DIATOM PHAEODACTYLUM TRICORNUTUM (BACILLARIOPHYCEAE) REVEAL CONSEQUENCES ON THE REGULATION OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS(1).

Diatoms play a crucial role in the biochemistry and ecology of most aquatic ecosystems, especially because of their high photosynthetic productivity. They often have to cope with a fluctuating light climate and a punctuated exposure to excess light, which can be harmful for photosynthesis. To gain insight into the regulation of photosynthesis in diatoms, we generated and studied mutants of the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum Bohlin carrying functionally altered versions of the plastidic psbA gene encoding the D1 protein of the PSII reaction center (PSII RC).