Microbial Interactions in Pollution Control Ecosystems

Microbial interaction determines the performance, stability, and resilience of the microbial communities. Understanding microbial interactions benefits the development of environmental biotechnology. The purpose of this review is to summarize the recent findings of microbial interactions in pollution control ecosystems from aspects of the substrate degradation, energy utilization, electron transfer, and information exchange.

Cross-feeding of substrates such as vitamins was found to be necessary for the degradation of some trace organic contaminants. Under different conditions, microorganisms can mediate various energy-utilization pathways (e.g., co-metabolism) to grow. Electroactive bacteria and cable bacteria can mediate extracellular electron transfer via conductive pili, c-type cytochrome, or filamentous structure. Quorum sensing plays an important role in the microbial aggregation and functional microbe enrichments. With all these knowledges, it will potentially benefit the development of disruptive environmental biotechnologies.

This review summarized recent findings of microbial interactions, many of which have huge potentials to advance environmental biotechnologies. Multi-omics methods should be further applied for comprehensively confirming known and unknown microbial processes. The co-occurrence network should be applied to unravel the interlinks among substrate degradation, energy utilization, electron transfer, and information exchange. The proper regulation of microbial interactions in practical application should be further addressed.