Toward Understanding Microbial Ecology to Restore a Degraded Ecosystem

The microbial community plays an important role in maintaining human health, addressing climate change, maintaining environmental quality, etc. High-throughput sequencing leads to the discovery and identification of more microbial community composition and function in diverse ecosystems. Microbiome therapeutics such as fecal microbiota transplantation for human health and bioaugmentation for activated sludge restoration have drawn great attention. However, microbiome therapeutics cannot secure the success of microbiome transplantation. This paper begins with a view on fecal microbiota transplantation and bioaugmentation and is followed by a parallel analysis of these two microbial therapeutic strategies. Accordingly, the microbial ecology mechanisms behind them were discussed. Finally, future research on microbiota transplantation was proposed. Successful application of both microbial therapeutics for human disease and bioremediation for contaminated environments relies on a better understanding of the microbial “entangled bank” and microbial ecology of these environments.