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      Scientists’ warning to humanity: microorganisms and climate change

      review-article
      1 , , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 17 , 33 , 35
      Nature Reviews. Microbiology
      Nature Publishing Group UK
      Environmental microbiology, Microbial ecology, Biogeochemistry, Climate-change impacts, Climate-change adaptation, Climate-change mitigation, Ecosystem services, Infectious diseases

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          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          In the Anthropocene, in which we now live, climate change is impacting most life on Earth. Microorganisms support the existence of all higher trophic life forms. To understand how humans and other life forms on Earth (including those we are yet to discover) can withstand anthropogenic climate change, it is vital to incorporate knowledge of the microbial ‘unseen majority’. We must learn not just how microorganisms affect climate change (including production and consumption of greenhouse gases) but also how they will be affected by climate change and other human activities. This Consensus Statement documents the central role and global importance of microorganisms in climate change biology. It also puts humanity on notice that the impact of climate change will depend heavily on responses of microorganisms, which are essential for achieving an environmentally sustainable future.

          Abstract

          The microbial majority with which we share Earth often goes unnoticed despite underlying major biogeochemical cycles and food webs, thereby taking a key role in climate change. This Consensus Statement highlights the importance of climate change microbiology and issues a call to action for all microbiologists.

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          Most cited references212

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          Impact of regional climate change on human health.

          The World Health Organisation estimates that the warming and precipitation trends due to anthropogenic climate change of the past 30 years already claim over 150,000 lives annually. Many prevalent human diseases are linked to climate fluctuations, from cardiovascular mortality and respiratory illnesses due to heatwaves, to altered transmission of infectious diseases and malnutrition from crop failures. Uncertainty remains in attributing the expansion or resurgence of diseases to climate change, owing to lack of long-term, high-quality data sets as well as the large influence of socio-economic factors and changes in immunity and drug resistance. Here we review the growing evidence that climate-health relationships pose increasing health risks under future projections of climate change and that the warming trend over recent decades has already contributed to increased morbidity and mortality in many regions of the world. Potentially vulnerable regions include the temperate latitudes, which are projected to warm disproportionately, the regions around the Pacific and Indian oceans that are currently subjected to large rainfall variability due to the El Niño/Southern Oscillation sub-Saharan Africa and sprawling cities where the urban heat island effect could intensify extreme climatic events.
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            Structure and function of the global topsoil microbiome

            Soils harbour some of the most diverse microbiomes on Earth and are essential for both nutrient cycling and carbon storage. To understand soil functioning, it is necessary to model the global distribution patterns and functional gene repertoires of soil microorganisms, as well as the biotic and environmental associations between the diversity and structure of both bacterial and fungal soil communities1-4. Here we show, by leveraging metagenomics and metabarcoding of global topsoil samples (189 sites, 7,560 subsamples), that bacterial, but not fungal, genetic diversity is highest in temperate habitats and that microbial gene composition varies more strongly with environmental variables than with geographic distance. We demonstrate that fungi and bacteria show global niche differentiation that is associated with contrasting diversity responses to precipitation and soil pH. Furthermore, we provide evidence for strong bacterial-fungal antagonism, inferred from antibiotic-resistance genes, in topsoil and ocean habitats, indicating the substantial role of biotic interactions in shaping microbial communities. Our results suggest that both competition and environmental filtering affect the abundance, composition and encoded gene functions of bacterial and fungal communities, indicating that the relative contributions of these microorganisms to global nutrient cycling varies spatially.
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              Primary Production of the Biosphere: Integrating Terrestrial and Oceanic Components

              C Field (1998)
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                r.cavicchioli@unsw.edu.au
                Journal
                Nat Rev Microbiol
                Nat. Rev. Microbiol
                Nature Reviews. Microbiology
                Nature Publishing Group UK (London )
                1740-1526
                1740-1534
                18 June 2019
                18 June 2019
                2019
                : 17
                : 9
                : 569-586
                Affiliations
                [1 ]ISNI 0000 0004 4902 0432, GRID grid.1005.4, School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, , The University of New South Wales, ; Sydney, NSW Australia
                [2 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2112 1969, GRID grid.4391.f, Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society, , Oregon State University, ; Corvallis, OR USA
                [3 ]ISNI 0000 0001 1090 0254, GRID grid.6738.a, Institute of Microbiology, , Technical University Braunschweig, ; Braunschweig, Germany
                [4 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2107 4242, GRID grid.266100.3, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, , University of California San Diego, ; La Jolla, CA USA
                [5 ]ISNI 0000 0004 0607 975X, GRID grid.19477.3c, Faculty of Chemistry, Biotechnology and Food Science, , Norwegian University of Life Sciences, ; Ås, Norway
                [6 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1936 8470, GRID grid.10025.36, Institute of Infection and Global Health, , University of Liverpool, ; Liverpool, UK
                [7 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2112 1969, GRID grid.4391.f, Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, , Oregon State University, ; Corvallis, OR USA
                [8 ]ISNI 0000 0001 1033 7684, GRID grid.10894.34, Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Marine and Polar Research, ; Bremerhaven, Germany
                [9 ]ISNI 0000 0004 0491 3210, GRID grid.419529.2, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, ; Bremen, Germany
                [10 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1936 826X, GRID grid.1009.8, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, , University of Tasmania, ; Hobart, TAS Australia
                [11 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1936 7689, GRID grid.59062.38, Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, and The Gund Institute for Environment, , University of Vermont, ; Burlington, VT USA
                [12 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2156 2780, GRID grid.5801.c, Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zurich, ; Zurich, Switzerland
                [13 ]ISNI 0000 0001 1017 3210, GRID grid.7010.6, Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, , Polytechnic University of Marche, ; Ancona, Italy
                [14 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1758 0806, GRID grid.6401.3, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, ; Naples, Italy
                [15 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2156 6108, GRID grid.41891.35, Center for Biofilm Engineering, and Chemical and Biological Engineering Department, Montana State University, ; Bozeman, MT USA
                [16 ]ISNI 0000000084992262, GRID grid.7177.6, Department of Freshwater and Marine Ecology, Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, , University of Amsterdam, ; Amsterdam, Netherlands
                [17 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2156 6853, GRID grid.42505.36, Department of Biological Sciences, Marine and Environmental Biology Section, , University of Southern California, ; Los Angeles, CA USA
                [18 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2218 3491, GRID grid.451303.0, Biological Sciences Division, Earth and Biological Sciences Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, ; Richland, WA USA
                [19 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2188 0957, GRID grid.410445.0, Daniel K. Inouye Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education, School of Ocean and Earth Science & Technology, , University of Hawaii at Manoa, ; Honolulu, HI USA
                [20 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2181 7878, GRID grid.47840.3f, Department of Integrative Biology, , University of California, Berkeley, ; Berkeley, CA USA
                [21 ]ISNI 000000012169920X, GRID grid.144532.5, Marine Biological Laboratory, ; Woods Hole, MA USA
                [22 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0668 7243, GRID grid.266093.8, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, , University of California, Irvine, ; Irvine, CA USA
                [23 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1936 738X, GRID grid.213876.9, Department of Marine Sciences, , University of Georgia, ; Athens, GA USA
                [24 ]ISNI 0000000107068890, GRID grid.20861.3d, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, ; Pasadena, CA USA
                [25 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1936 7988, GRID grid.4305.2, School of Geosciences, , University of Edinburgh, ; Edinburgh, UK
                [26 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2181 7878, GRID grid.47840.3f, Division of Environmental Health Sciences, School of Public Health, , University of California, Berkeley, ; Berkeley, CA USA
                [27 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2285 7943, GRID grid.261331.4, Microbiology Department, and the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, , The Ohio State University, ; Columbus, OH USA
                [28 ]ISNI 0000 0000 9939 5719, GRID grid.1029.a, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, and Global Centre for Land-Based Innovation, , Western Sydney University, ; Penrith, NSW Australia
                [29 ]GRID grid.17089.37, Department of Biological Sciences, , University of Alberta, ; Edmonton, AB Canada
                [30 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2097 4943, GRID grid.213917.f, School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, ; Atlanta, GA USA
                [31 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2285 7943, GRID grid.261331.4, Department of Microbiology, and Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering, and the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, , The Ohio State University, ; Columbus, OH USA
                [32 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2179 088X, GRID grid.1008.9, School of BioSciences, , The University of Melbourne, ; Parkville, VIC Australia
                [33 ]ISNI 0000 0001 0328 1619, GRID grid.1046.3, Australian Institute of Marine Science, ; Townsville, QLD Australia
                [34 ]ISNI 0000 0001 1547 9964, GRID grid.176731.5, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and Institute for Human Infections and Immunity, , University of Texas Medical Branch, ; Galveston, TX USA
                [35 ]ISNI 0000 0000 9320 7537, GRID grid.1003.2, Australian Centre for Ecogenomics, , University of Queensland, ; Brisbane, QLD Australia
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8989-6402
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0335-187X
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2117-4176
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0230-4692
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9598-3211
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5487-4315
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6660-6721
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1760-8496
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9774-4580
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0702-8167
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0223-4615
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0558-102X
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4413-4185
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5095-5022
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8398-8234
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4607-0744
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4753-5278
                Article
                222
                10.1038/s41579-019-0222-5
                7136171
                31213707
                9b2e759b-7503-44e0-aa3f-a9b7bce62fcc
                © Springer Nature Limited 2019

                Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

                History
                : 22 May 2019
                Categories
                Consensus Statement
                Custom metadata
                © Springer Nature Limited 2019

                environmental microbiology,microbial ecology,biogeochemistry,climate-change impacts,climate-change adaptation,climate-change mitigation,ecosystem services,infectious diseases

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