Microbial evolution in extreme environments: microbial migration, genomic highways, and geochemical barriers in hydrothermal ecosystems

Background Recent advances in microbial ecology are providing unprecedented opportunities to test Baas Becking’s oft-cited “everything is everywhere, environment selects” axiom. A number of recent studies have brought together genomic, ecological, and physico-chemical approaches that are, for the first time, beginning to test and quantify this axiom, providing fundamental shifts in our understanding of microbial ecology. Here we integrate environmental sequencing with biogeochemistry to interrogate patterns in abundance and community composition—as well as dispersal mechanisms and timing—that underlie microbial migration in natural ecosystems. Our analysis focuses on the presence of and similarities across high identity genomic DNA scaffolds and fragments, thousands of which are distributed across over two dozen communities sampled from hydrothermal ecosystems from Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming and Great Boiling Springs, Nevada.