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Storytelling has been the primary means of knowledge transfer over human history. The effectiveness and reach of stories are improved when the message is appropriate for the target audience. Oftentimes, the stories that are most well received and recounted are those that have a clear purpose and that are told from a variety of perspectives that touch on the varied interests of the target audience. Whether scientists realize or not, they are accustomed to telling stories of their own scientific discoveries through the preparation of manuscripts, presentations, and lectures. Perhaps less frequently, scientists prepare review articles or book chapters that summarize a body of knowledge on a given subject matter, meant to be more holistic recounts of a body of literature. Yet, by necessity, such summaries are often still narrow in their scope and are told from the perspective of a particular discipline. In other words, interdisciplinary reviews or book chapters tend to be the rarity rather than the norm. Here, we advocate for and highlight the benefits of interdisciplinary perspectives on microbiological subjects., (© 2022 Applied Microbiology International and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Coastal salt marshes are key sites of biogeochemical cycling and ideal systems in which to investigate the community structure of complex microbial communities. Here, we clarify structural-functional relationships among microorganisms and their mineralogical environment, revealing previously undescribed metabolic activity patterns and precise spatial arrangements within salt marsh sediment. Following 3.7-day in situ incubations with a non-canonical amino acid that was incorporated into new biomass, samples were resin-embedded and analysed by correlative fluorescence and electron microscopy to map the microscale arrangements of anabolically active and inactive organisms alongside mineral grains. Parallel sediment samples were examined by fluorescence-activated cell sorting and 16S rRNA gene sequencing to link anabolic activity to taxonomic identity. Both approaches demonstrated a rapid decline in the proportion of anabolically active cells with depth into salt marsh sediment, from ~60% in the top centimetre to 9.4%-22.4% between 2 and 10 cm. From the top to the bottom, the most prominent active community members shifted from sulfur cycling phototrophic consortia, to putative sulfate-reducing bacteria likely oxidizing organic compounds, to fermentative lineages. Correlative microscopy revealed more abundant (and more anabolically active) organisms around non-quartz minerals including rutile, orthoclase and plagioclase. Microbe-mineral relationships appear to be dynamic and context-dependent arbiters of biogeochemical cycling., (© 2021 The Authors. Environmental Microbiology published by Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

A hallmark of the SUP05 clade of marine Gammaproteobacteria is the ability to use energy obtained from reduced inorganic sulfur to fuel autotrophic fixation of carbon using RuBisCo. However, some SUP05 also have the genetic potential for heterotrophic growth, raising questions about the roles of SUP05 in the marine carbon cycle. We used genomic reconstructions, physiological growth experiments and proteomics to characterize central carbon and energy metabolism in Candidatus Thioglobus singularis strain PS1, a representative from the SUP05 clade that has the genetic potential for autotrophy and heterotrophy. Here, we show that the addition of individual organic compounds and 0.2 μm filtered diatom lysate significantly enhanced the growth of this bacterium. This positive growth response to organic substrates, combined with expression of a complete TCA cycle, heterotrophic pathways for carbon assimilation, and methylotrophic pathways for energy conversion demonstrate strain PS1's capacity for heterotrophic growth. Further, our inability to verify the expression of RuBisCO suggests that carbon fixation was not critical for growth. These results highlight the metabolic diversity of the SUP05 clade that harbours both primary producers and consumers of organic carbon in the oceans and expand our understanding of specific pathways of organic matter oxidation by the heterotrophic SUP05., (© 2019 Society for Applied Microbiology and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)