Microbial Ecology

Abstract

Microbes usually occur in vast communities. Many reports state that the species richness can be enormous even in a small quantity of soil or water, indicating the complex interactions among different microbial habitats in communities. Moreover, differences in physicochemical conditions led to the establishment of unique communities in each environment, such as in water, sediment, soil, plants, fungi, protozoa, and animals. Since many centuries of coexistence of these diverse communities in different habitats have led to the essential adaptation and speciation. One of the extremely important bacterial phyla in these communities is Actinobacteria. Understanding the microbial ecology, i.e., importance of Actinobacteria as part of the activities of these microbial communities, is among the utmost important, challenging, and fascinating areas of science. This pattern of colonizing microbial community distribution can trigger various complex interactions such as mutualism, symbiotic association, and antagonistic or pathogenic and parasitic relationships. Many scientists have indicated that the bioactive compounds or secondary metabolites recovered from the microorganisms are involved in these microbial interactions, often in low quantities. One of the major challenges of the researchers is to produce medically important drugs, which can be achieved through complex microbial interactions. These microbial interactions take part as pivotal role in the development and preservation of colonization with beneficial and harmful properties, including infective microorganisms. In addition to this, activated host defense mechanisms can able to produce antimicrobial agents against the harmful organisms in the environment. Microbial interactions or communications are also affecting gene regulation within microbial communities and in host organisms in response to the infections caused by the pathogenic microorganisms.