Microbial Interactions Across Species: Shaping Pathogenesis, Symbiosis, and Ecosystem Dynamics

Microbiology investigates the complexities of interactions among different microbial species and their higher eukaryotic hosts, encompassing a broad spectrum of dynamics such as competition, cooperation, and symbiosis. While significant insights have come from studies focusing on pure cultures, these fail to fully represent the intricate web of interspecies and inter-kingdom communications present in natural ecosystems. Particularly underexplored are the interspecific communications that occur between different microbial taxa and between microorganisms and eukaryotic hosts, which play critical roles in pathogenic, symbiotic, and ecosystem interactions. Traditional research often limits its focus to within-species signaling, overlooking the potential influences and regulatory mechanisms exerted by neighboring organisms.

This Research Topic aims to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms and outcomes of microbial interspecies communication in their natural environments, which hold key implications for pathogenesis, symbiosis, and ecosystem dynamics. By exploring microbial interactions at and beyond the interspecies level, this topic seeks to uncover new insights into microbial behavior in natural settings, thereby enhancing our grasp of their roles in ecological functions and various biological interactions including competition, cooperation, and predation. The contributions to this topic will broaden our knowledge base in microbial ecology and bio-interactions, providing significant advancements in microbial biology across diverse ecosystems.

To gather further insights in the realm of interspecific and inter-kingdom microbial interactions, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

o Studies of cellular dynamics revealing microbial behavior in response to other microorganisms or host cells.
o Multi-omics approaches to unravel complex cellular responses during interspecific microbial interactions.
o Molecular genetics research identifying key genes involved in interspecies communication and their mechanisms.
o Biochemical and molecular biology studies focused on signaling pathways that mediate interspecies communication.
o Investigations into the ecological impacts of antibiotics or other agents on interspecies microbial interactions.

Article Types: This Research Topic invites contributions in the form of Original Research, Review, and Perspective articles covering the above themes.

Keywords: Interspecific interaction, intercellular communication, interspecies interactions, bacterial communication, host-microbe interactions, microbe-microbe interactions, interspecies communication, inter-kingdom communication

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.