Rob Knight

TL;DR: Testing the near-surface atmosphere above three distinct land-use types across northern Colorado, USA found that atmospheric bacterial communities differ from those in potential source environments (leaf surfaces and soils), and it is demonstrated that this information may be able to be used to determine the relative inputs of bacteria from these source environments to the atmosphere.

TL;DR: Plant genetic effects were significant amid the large effects of plant age on the rhizosphere microbiome, regardless of the specific community of each field, and despite microbiome responses to climate events.

TL;DR: The results show that cross-study comparisons of human microbiota are valuable when the studied parameter has a large effect size, but studies of more subtle effects on the human microbiota require carefully selected control populations and standardized protocols.

TL;DR: The results suggest that many samples collected and stored under field conditions without refrigeration may be useful for microbial community analyses, and environmental factors and biases in molecular techniques likely confer greater amounts of variation to microbial communities than do differences in short-term storage conditions.

TL;DR: A suite of bacterial and fungal groups that contribute to nitrogen cycling and a reproducible network of decomposers that emerge on predictable time scales are found.