New papers in Environmental Microbiology and Frontiers in Microbiology

DOME teams around Michael Wagner and Holger Daims led two genome projects of nitrifying microorganisms representing lineages of global importance. The ammonium-oxidizing archaeon Ca.Nitrososphaera gargensis is the first member of the so-called soil group or group I.1b whose genome was sequenced. This analysis showed that these organisms are metabolically much more flexible than their marine counterparts. The second study reports on the genome of the major marine nitrite oxidizer Nitrospina gracilis and demonstrates that this widespread organism represents a novel bacterial phylum challenging its previous classification.