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Disaster Microbiology—a New Field of Study
Natural and human-made disasters can cause tremendous physical damage, societal change, and suffering. In addition to their effects on people, disasters have been shown to alter the microbial population in the area affected. Alterations for microbial populations can lead to new ecological interactio...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
American Society for Microbiology
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9426413/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35920557 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mbio.01680-22 |
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author | Smith, Daniel F. Q. Casadevall, Arturo |
author_facet | Smith, Daniel F. Q. Casadevall, Arturo |
author_sort | Smith, Daniel F. Q. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Natural and human-made disasters can cause tremendous physical damage, societal change, and suffering. In addition to their effects on people, disasters have been shown to alter the microbial population in the area affected. Alterations for microbial populations can lead to new ecological interactions, with additional potentially adverse consequences for many species, including humans. Disaster-related stressors can be powerful forces for microbial selection. Studying microbial adaptation in disaster sites can reveal new biological processes, including mechanisms by which some microbes could become pathogenic and others could become beneficial (e.g., used for bioremediation). Here we survey examples of how disasters have affected microbiology and suggest that the topic of “disaster microbiology” is itself a new field of study. Given the accelerating pace of human-caused climate change and the increasing encroachment of the natural word by human activities, it is likely that this area of research will become increasingly relevant to the broader field of microbiology. Since disaster microbiology is a broad term open to interpretation, we propose criteria for what phenomena fall under its scope. The basic premise is that there must be a disaster that causes a change in the environment, which then causes an alteration to microbes (either a physical or biological adaptation), and that this adaptation must have additional ramifications. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9426413 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | American Society for Microbiology |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-94264132022-08-31 Disaster Microbiology—a New Field of Study Smith, Daniel F. Q. Casadevall, Arturo mBio Minireview Natural and human-made disasters can cause tremendous physical damage, societal change, and suffering. In addition to their effects on people, disasters have been shown to alter the microbial population in the area affected. Alterations for microbial populations can lead to new ecological interactions, with additional potentially adverse consequences for many species, including humans. Disaster-related stressors can be powerful forces for microbial selection. Studying microbial adaptation in disaster sites can reveal new biological processes, including mechanisms by which some microbes could become pathogenic and others could become beneficial (e.g., used for bioremediation). Here we survey examples of how disasters have affected microbiology and suggest that the topic of “disaster microbiology” is itself a new field of study. Given the accelerating pace of human-caused climate change and the increasing encroachment of the natural word by human activities, it is likely that this area of research will become increasingly relevant to the broader field of microbiology. Since disaster microbiology is a broad term open to interpretation, we propose criteria for what phenomena fall under its scope. The basic premise is that there must be a disaster that causes a change in the environment, which then causes an alteration to microbes (either a physical or biological adaptation), and that this adaptation must have additional ramifications. American Society for Microbiology 2022-08-03 /pmc/articles/PMC9426413/ /pubmed/35920557 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mbio.01680-22 Text en Copyright © 2022 Smith and Casadevall. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Minireview Smith, Daniel F. Q. Casadevall, Arturo Disaster Microbiology—a New Field of Study |
title | Disaster Microbiology—a New Field of Study |
title_full | Disaster Microbiology—a New Field of Study |
title_fullStr | Disaster Microbiology—a New Field of Study |
title_full_unstemmed | Disaster Microbiology—a New Field of Study |
title_short | Disaster Microbiology—a New Field of Study |
title_sort | disaster microbiology—a new field of study |
topic | Minireview |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9426413/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35920557 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mbio.01680-22 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT smithdanielfq disastermicrobiologyanewfieldofstudy AT casadevallarturo disastermicrobiologyanewfieldofstudy |