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Biogeography: An Emerging Cornerstone for Understanding Prokaryotic Diversity, Ecology, and Evolution

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Abstract

New questions about microbial ecology and diversity combined with significant improvement in the resolving power of molecular tools have helped the reemergence of the field of prokaryotic biogeography. Here, we show that biogeography may constitute a cornerstone approach to study diversity patterns at different taxonomic levels in the prokaryotic world. Fundamental processes leading to the formation of biogeographic patterns are examined in an evolutionary and ecological context. Based on different evolutionary scenarios, biogeographic patterns are thus posited to consist of dramatic range expansion or regression events that would be the results of evolutionary and ecological forces at play at the genotype level. The deterministic or random nature of those underlying processes is, however, questioned in light of recent surveys. Such scenarios led us to predict the existence of particular genes whose presence or polymorphism would be associated with cosmopolitan taxa. Furthermore, several conceptual and methodological pitfalls that could hamper future developments of the field are identified, and future approaches and new lines of investigation are suggested.

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Acknowledgments

We thank J. Fredrickson and Y. Cohen for the invitation to write this article and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.

We acknowledge support from NSF grant no. DEB-00755564, DOE Office of Science (BER) DE-FG02-98ER62535, and a postdoctoral fellowship from the Swiss NSF to A.R.

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  1. Alban Ramette

    Present address: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Celsiusstrasse 1, 28359, Bremen, Germany

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  1. Center for Microbial Ecology, Michigan State University, 540 Plant and Soil Sciences Building, East Lansing, MI, 48824-1325, USA

    Alban Ramette & James M. Tiedje

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Ramette, A., Tiedje, J.M. Biogeography: An Emerging Cornerstone for Understanding Prokaryotic Diversity, Ecology, and Evolution. Microb Ecol 53, 197–207 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-005-5010-2

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