Functional capacity of the environment Flashcards
What is the functional capacity of an environment from a perspective of microbial ecology?
The collective capacity of microorganisms within an environment to perform tasks
What is the functional capacity of an environment from the perspective of environmental genomics?
The capacity or functional potential of the collective genomes of organisms within an environment,
Functional capacity of the environment?
- The collective capacity of microorganisms to perform tasks underlies ecosystem functioning.
- Microbial ecosystems are highly interconnected. different metabolic pathways feed into each other.
- Loss of one function could disrupt a range of other function.
What is functional redundancy?
- Large degree of overlap in metabolisms among different microorganisms within a habitat
- Redundant function lead to the same outcomes
- these mechanisms can be the same or equivalent (a same or alternative pathway for the same outcome)
What are the populations?
Groups of individuals within a species ( can be described collections of strains, ecotypes or variants)
What is the strain?
Descendants of a single pure cultures (can include variants)
What are ecotypes?
Ecologically distinct populations (within species) that are adapted to a certain niche.
How phylogenetic groups persist through time?
prokaryotic species have a central core of stable genes.
constrain evolution in bacteria. the central core is ribosome 16s rRNA and it can’t be simple mutate.
What are the mechanisms of adaptations?
Mutation: gene duplication and gene loss.
Gene gain : horizontal gene transfer (recombination).
What are the mechanisms of gene gain: horizontal gene transfer (HGT)?
Plasmids: conjugation with other cells via pili.
Free DNA: transformation (uptake of free DNA).
Bacteriophage: transduction (virus-mediated, DNA transfer).
