This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Humans rely on microbial communities in both natural and applied settings. One such applied setting is wastewater treatment plants, which use microbial communities to remove pollutants. However, the stability of the taxonomic diversity in these settings is not well understood. To close this gap, researchers examined how the microbial community in activated sludge changed over time in a full-scale wastewater treatment plant. For the first 3 years of a 9-year series, the microbial community fluctuated around a stable average. Then a bleaching event, marked in red under the timeline, abruptly pushed the community to an alternative stable state, where the originally dominant Actinobacteriota were disproportionally depleted and replaced with Proteobacteria, but these taxonomic changes led to little change in either the metabolic profile of the community or system performance. In a fine-scale analysis of dynamics, the researchers identified cohorts that dominated at different periods..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"In northern ecosystems, winter carbon loss is estimated to exceed growing season carbon uptake, primarily because of microbial decomposition. Viruses in soil alter microbial carbon cycling by affecting metabolic pathways and killing their hosts, but whether viruses are active under anoxic and sub-freezing soil conditions remains unknown. To find out, a recent study used stable isotope probing (SIP) targeted metagenomics to investigate active microbes in Alaskan Arctic peat soils under simulated winter conditions, with a particular focus on viruses and virus-host dynamics. Overall, 46 bacterial and 243 viral populations actively took up soil water labeled with ¹⁸O and respired CO₂. Active bacteria represented a small proportion of the total microbial community but were able to ferment and degrade organic matter. In contrast, a large diversity of viruses were found to be active, one-third of which were linked to active bacteria..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Cases of the fungal disease candidiasis in infants have been increasing over the past two decades, but our understanding of the behavior and evolution of Candida spp. outside laboratory models has been lacking. Researchers assembled new C. albicans and C. parapsilosis genomes using data from premature infant feces, hospital surfaces, clinical samples, and non-hospital environmental samples. Relative to an existing reference genome, the C. parapsilosis genomes analyzed had genomic “hotspots” of single nucleotide variants, and the C. parapsilosis genomes from premature infants had hotspots that matched hospital and subway surface samples, which may suggest a common ancestor. The researchers also analyzed a microbial gene expression time course in one infant being treated for Candida infection. The in situ transcriptomic profiles were highly variable relative to cultured C..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"In the absence of oxygen, some prokaryotes can degrade organic matter via anaerobic digestion. This occurs in natural settings, like wetlands, and industrial ones, like wastewater treatment or biogas production. But what about viruses? Bacteriophages can impact their hosts’ community structure through selective pressure and have been used to influence microbial communities, such as through pathogen control. A recent study examined the virome of anaerobic digestion communities undergoing prophage- inducing environmental stresses. The virome was almost entirely composed of tailed bacteriophages of the order Caudovirales. Metagenome reconstruction revealed 1,092 viral genomes and 120 prokaryotic genomes, and over half of the prokaryotic genomes contained a provirus in their genomic sequence. In general, species of viruses and prokaryotes could be grouped by having similar reactions to stressors. Archaea had the most pronounced reactions to stressors and featured behaviors unique to those species..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"“All happy families look alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” – Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina. According to Tolstoy, a healthy home is the result of many factors falling into harmonious order, whereas disharmony is what happens when even one of these factors is out of place. A new study confirms the same principle holds true for the communities of microbes that determine oral health. Researchers mapped microbial DNA from healthy individuals and individuals with one of three forms of gum infection: chronic periodontitis, localized aggressive periodontitis, or generalized aggressive periodontitis. While it’s known that all three forms of periodontitis are microbially derived, the microbial makeup that gives rise to each remains unclear. High-throughput whole genome sequencing revealed that, like Tolstoy's unhappy homes, no two individuals with disease were alike..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antimicrobial resistance is a looming threat to global health. As a result, the livestock industry is moving away from using antibiotics in feed to enhance growth. But this shift may have led to increased rates of systemic infections and reduced production efficiency. Alternatives for antibiotic growth promotants (AGPs) are needed, but the mechanism behind the efficiency of AGPs is largely unknown. So, a recent study systematically evaluated the composition and function of the chicken gut microbial community in response to AGPs. The impact of AGPs was dependent on the birds' age and diet as well as the intestinal sampling location. Overall, AGPs had a limited impact on the abundances of specific microbial groups but did shift which groups were influential and exclude others. The chicken gut microbiome functionally responded to AGPs by changing the expression of multiple pathways, including by increasing expression of cell wall formation and antimicrobial resistance mechanism genes..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antibiotics are critical treatments for bacterial infections, but antibiotic resistance is a growing problem. Wastewater treatment plants may foster resistance development, since sewage contains both human pathogens and antibiotics or their metabolite. The activated sludge (AS) stage commonly used to treat sewage at these plants is especially microbe-rich and may encourage transfer of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) through reproduction (vertical transfer) or movement of mobile genetic elements (horizontal transfer). To learn more, a recent study profiled ARGs and their neighboring genes at five wastewater treatment plants on three continents. Overall, ARG abundance was lower in AS than in incoming sewage (IN). In addition, ARGs tended to colocalize with plasmids and other mobile genetic elements to a greater extent in IN than AS, indicating decreased horizontal transfer potential..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem worldwide—and in outer space. Spaceflight can promote biofilm formation and antimicrobial resistance development, and astronauts are especially vulnerable to infection due to the unique demands of spaceflight. To support future space travel, it is critical to understand exactly how spaceflight affects microbial diversity and virulence. To learn more, researchers recently used a machine learning algorithm to analyze sequencing data from the Microbial Tracking (MT)-1 mission, which sampled microbes at eight locations on the International Space Station during three flights. The model predicted the presence of hundreds of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in the 226 bacterial strains isolated from the flights, including strains of the potentially very pathogenic bacterium Enterobacter bugandensis and the food poisoning-related bacterium Bacillus cereus..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Resistance to antibiotics is a growing global threat to human and animal health. Much of the current research into antibiotic resistance has focused on the human gut, but significantly less of it has examined rivers, which are akin to a terrestrial ‘gut.’ To close this gap, researchers examined the antibiotic resistance genes and their hosts in the 3rd longest river in the world, the Yangtze. They identified 1853 species of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that collectively carried 31 types of antibiotic resistance genes. Human pathogenic bacteria carried a disproportionately large share of the resistance genes. Specifically, human pathogens accounted for 5.9% of the host population found in the river sediment, but they carried 46% of the resistance genes there. In the water column, human pathogens carried 64% of the resistance genes while representing only 13.4% of the host population. The dominant antibiotic resistance genes differed from those found in the human gut, anthropogenic systems, or lakes..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antibiotics are powerful for fighting infection. But they could create a dangerous imbalance in the gut, where the eradication of harmful bacteria might make room for gut fungi to invade. To find out, researchers analyzed stool samples from 14 healthy participants. Samples were collected over 3 months following a 6-day course of antibiotics. While the bacterial community mostly rebounded over those 3 months, the fungal community shifted from one characterized largely by mutually beneficial interactions (red) to one fraught with competitive interactions (blue) with half of the bacterial-fungal interactions detected before the antibiotic treatment disappearing 3 months later. Metagenomics data revealed that certain bacteria normally help keep opportunistic fungal pathogens like Candida albicans in check. Understanding how could help researchers find ways to restore balance to the gut microbiome following drug treatment or during disease..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"The rapid spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing public health and environmental problem, except, presumably, in remote regions like Antarctica. Antarctica is considered the most pristine continent because of its minimal human activity confined to specific research stations, so it’s an ideal location to study the early mechanisms of AMR acquisition. Existing evidence suggests that although human gut bacteria have colonized native wildlife around research stations, AMR in birds and seals is minimal. However, the research so far has been limited, and the standards and methods used have varied widely. In addition, much of the continent remains unsampled, making a comprehensive AMR assessment impossible. Implementation of continent-wide standards for AMR reporting would help future studies produce meaningful and comparable results that can be used to understand AMR acquisition in other regions of the globe..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Antimicrobials are commonly used in agriculture and are important for animal health. This use drives most of the antimicrobial use globally and has led to an increase in antimicrobial resistance (AMR), including resistance to antimicrobials that are critical in human medicine. Researchers recently examined the AMR profiles of over 400 pigs, including wild boars, Tibetan pigs, and commercial pigs, under multiple rearing modes. They identified over a thousand potential antimicrobial resistance gene (ARG) sequences that belonged to 69 different drug resistance classes. From this dataset a few patterns emerged. Tetracycline resistance was the most enriched, but aminoglycoside resistance had the most unique ARGs. Farm-reared pigs had higher AMR levels than semi-free-range pigs or wild boars..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease (AHPND) is an important bacterial disease of shrimp caused by some Vibrio species and has severe negative impacts on shrimp aquaculture globally. Antibiotics are commonly used prophylactically against such diseases but can cause bacterial antibiotic resistance and microbiome impairment. Given the risk of antibiotics to human and environmental health, the application of probiotics is a promising approach, but whether these probiotics affect the shrimp gut microbiome remains unknown. Recently, researchers examined how the shrimp gastrointestinal microbiota responded to the ILI strain, a Vibrio strain that also serves as an effective shrimp probiotic. The ILI strain was effective not only in preventing AHPND and promoting shrimp survival but also in maintaining a healthy gut microbiome..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Microbial metagenomes are like a blueprint of all the functions performed by a microbial community. Some microbes can't be grown in the lab, so metagenomics is important for investigating otherwise-unknown microbial "dark matter". Short-read sequencing provides large amounts of data, but it's hard to assemble into complete genomes. A recent study combined short-read data with nanopore long-read data using Iterative Hybrid Assembly (IHA). The researchers reconstructed 49 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs), including some with very low coverage. In total, 34 MAGs did not belong to any known genus, representing unknown microbe groups. The IHA method revealed more of the genes present than a short-read-only approach and showed that the anammox genome of genus Ca. Brocadia contains two identical hydrazine synthase genes. The current method is best for enriched microbial communities and will be extended to high-complexity samples in the future..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Our microbiomes are in continuous exchange with the microorganisms living in our indoor environments. In hospitals, this interaction may play a critical role in hospital-acquired infections and the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. However, the bacterial colonization dynamics in newly opened hospitals are poorly understood. In a recent study, researchers used a longitudinal metagenomic approach to characterize this process in a newly occupied hospital ward. Sequencing data showed that the taxonomic succession was site-specific and led to stable community structures after only a few weeks. This fast colonization process was characterized by a significant increase in the bacterial biomass and its alpha-diversity. The bacterial composition of the environment could also be linked to exchanges with patient microbiota. They did not detect a rise in pathogenic bacteria during the 30-week study, but the number of antibiotic resistance genes found on the hospital floor increased over time..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Metagenomic analysis frequently plays an important role in development pipelines for human fecal microbiome-related products, but validation and standardization of the methods used to extract DNA and assemble sequence libraries for these studies is currently lacking. To close this gap, researchers recently characterized existing protocols for accuracy and precision. First, they tested the quantification accuracy by using a defined mock community of bacteria. Then, the protocols that performed as expected were evaluated for both within- and inter-laboratory precision metrics. The protocols were also tested against the MOSAIC Standards Challenge samples. Lastly, they defined performance metrics for the recommended protocols to provide best-practice guidance. The uptake of the recommendations generated here should improve reproducibility in human metagenomic research and therefore facilitate development and commercialization of human microbiome-related products..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

Biology is designed for multi-semester biology courses for science majors. It is grounded on an evolutionary basis and includes exciting features that highlight careers in the biological sciences and everyday applications of the concepts at hand. To meet the needs of today’s instructors and students, some content has been strategically condensed while maintaining the overall scope and coverage of traditional texts for this course. Instructors can customize the book, adapting it to the approach that works best in their classroom. Biology also includes an innovative art program that incorporates critical thinking and clicker questions to help students understand—and apply—key concepts.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:Explain pharmacogenomicsDefine polygenic

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Birds can carry and transmit viruses to humans and other animals. Thus, understanding the viral community hosted by birds could help us predict future outbreaks of human disease. A recent metagenomics study took a broad look at the viruses found in the gut of wild and captive birds. The dataset included samples from over 3,000 birds that represented over 87 species and 10 different phylogenetic orders and the researchers characterized genomes from numerous viral families including astroviruses, coronaviruses, parvoviruses, and adenoviruses. Examining trends, they found that wild birds had higher viral diversity than captive birds. There was also evidence of potential cross-species transmission between wild birds and domestic poultry. Further analysis of the viral genomic sequences revealed differences in virus distribution patterns between wild and captive birds. Different phylogenetic orders of birds and geographic sites also had distinct distribution patterns..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.