Micro-organisms and Earth Systems

Description

There is growing awareness that important environmental transformations are catalysed, mediated and influenced by microorganisms, and geomicrobiology can be defined as the influence of microorganisms on geologic processes. This is probably the most rapidly growing area of microbiology at present, combining environmental and molecular microbiology together with significant areas of mineralogy, geochemistry and hydrology. This volume focuses on the function of microorganisms in the environment and their influence on 'global' processes. It will include state-of-the art approaches to visualisation, culture and identification, community interactions and gene transfer, and diversity studies in relation to key processes. This overview for researchers and graduate students will represent environmental microbiology in its broadest sense and help to promote exciting collaborations between microbiologists and those in complementary physical and chemical disciplines.

Geoffrey Michael Gadd is Professor of Microbiology and Head of the Division of Environmental and Applied Biology in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee, UK. Kirk T. Semple is a Reader in the Department of Environmental Science at Lancaster University, UK. Hilary M. Lappin-Scott is Professor of Environmental Microbiology in the School of Biosciences, University of Exeter, UK.

'This book constitutes a milestone in the emerging field of biogeosciences and will interest not only microbial ecologists and geomicrobiologists, but also all scientists working with a multidisciplinary perspective and approach to understand the Earth's biogeosystem.' Microbiology Today