Microbial Life in Underexplored Aquatic Environments

Aquatic ecosystems across the globe are incredibly diverse and crucial for sustaining various planetary processes like biogeochemical cycles and climate control. Despite their importance, vast sections of these environments remain largely unexplored, particularly regarding their microbial inhabitants. This obscurity means that the characteristics and roles of microbes within these ecosystems are not fully understood, therefore missing critical insights into their biodiversity, ecological dynamics, and functional potentials.

This Research Topic aims to elucidate the microbial communities residing in understudied aquatic locations, including deep-sea trenches, ocean mesopelagic zone, subglacial lakes, secluded freshwater ecosystems, as well as aquatic systems with unique physical-chemical characteristic that are not being routinely studied. We are particularly interested in innovative research that reveals new information about the genetic, physiological, and ecological aspects of these microorganisms, as well as their adaptations to the environment and interactions at the population, community, and ecosystem level.

In exploring these environments, the Research Topic welcomes Original Research, Reviews, Methods and Perspectives that focus on expanding our knowledge of:

• Microbial diversity and community structure utilizing molecular, bioinformatic, and imaging techniques;

• Microbial contributions to essential biogeochemical cycling in unique environments;

• Structural and genomic adaptations that enable microorganisms to survive in extreme conditions like high pressure, low/high temperatures, high salinity, etc;

• New technologies and methods that improve the study of hard-to-access microbial ecosystems;

• The impact on and response of these microbial communities to environmental shifts, relating to ecosystem resilience and climate variations.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Aquatic ecosystem diversity, Deep-sea microbial communities, Mesopelagic zone, Microbial genetic diversity, Microbial community resilience, Marine microbial genomics, Freshwater microbial diversity, Underexplored environments

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.