ATBIs (various approaches)

[B. J. Tindall]

Ken Kinman wrote
>      I can understand Brian Tindall's frustration that prokaryotes (Kingdom
>Monera) are usually overlooked in biological inventories.  But on the other
>hand, prokaryotes tend to have very wide distributions (or at least
>ecological, as opposed to geographical).  Knowing that E. coli has been
>found in Costa Rica is about as useful as stating that Homo sapiens is found
>there.  I don't know if they have bacteriologists on staff at ATBIs, but for
>Kingdom Monera it would seem more cost-effective to have samples sent to
>central repositories for study (molecular sequencing, etc.).

Well yes that might be true for E.coli and Homo sapiens, but what about the
unique microflora associated with the unique flora and fauna of Costa Rica.
The results of limited in depth biodiversity studies of prokaryotes
indicates that while species "x" may be widely distributed one may find
that a particular sub population is characteristic for a particular
ecological niche. Or even that what looks like species "x" is in fact
species "y" (when you look closely, but species "y" has not been described
before). At present we have only scratched the surface when it comes to
prokaryotes so any suggestion that everything is everywhere is over
extrapolating. Having been pulled up on the missing fungi then I would also
suggest that fungi and protists are in much the same boat. If you can't see
it with the naked eye then it gets overlooked or swept under the carpet
(perhaps this explains the missing bacteriologists on the staff of ATBI -
no-one thinks to ask!!). Microorganisms play an important role in nature
(mineral cycling, nitrogen fixation etc), doing things which most "higher
eukarotes" can't do, and on which they depend.
The problem of how to do microbial ATBIs is another topic, but I would not
put all my eggs in the molecular basket.
Brian



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