Microbial functional diversity and redundancy: moving forward.

Microbial functional ecology is expanding as we can now measure the traits of wild microbes that affect ecosystem functioning. Here, we review techniques and advances that could be the bedrock for a unified framework to study microbial functions. These include our newfound access to environmental microbial genomes, collections of microbial traits, but also our ability to study microbes' distribution and expression.

Assembly processes and functional diversity of marine protists and their rare biosphere.

Background: The mechanisms shaping the rare microbial biosphere and its role in ecosystems remain unclear. We developed an approach to study ecological patterns in the rare biosphere and use it on a vast collection of marine microbiomes, sampled in coastal ecosystems at a regional scale. We study the assembly processes, and the ecological strategies constituting the rare protistan biosphere.

Phytoplankton taxonomic and functional diversity patterns across a coastal tidal front.

Oceanic physics at fine scale; e.g. eddies, fronts, filaments; are notoriously difficult to sample.

Species specific gene expression dynamics during harmful algal blooms.

Harmful algal blooms are caused by specific members of microbial communities. Understanding the dynamics of these events requires comparing the strategies developed by the problematic species to cope with environmental fluctuations to the ones developed by the other members of the community. During three consecutive years, the meta-transcriptome of micro-eukaryote communities was sequenced during blooms of the toxic dinoflagellate Alexandrium minutum.