Characterization of Microbial Communities and Its Potential Towards Biotechnological Applications

Dear Colleagues,

Microorganisms thrive as part of complex microcosms in almost every abiotic and biotic niche. Microbial communities drive fundamental processes in ecosystems and are clearly the first responders to any environmental change.

Advances in high throughput technologies have enabled the evaluation of the community ecology, composition, and function without full dependence on laboratory-based culturing, as well as the characterization of microbial responses to the changing environment in situ, in laboratory enrichments with reduced complexity, in pure cultures or even as single cells.

Significantly, the characterization of the genomic repertoire of microbial communities is paving the way to the development of novel biotechnological applications in different fields, including bioremediation, biocatalysis, biomedicine, and biomonitoring.

The aim of this Special Issue is to provide an adequate multidisciplinary platform for the interchange of valuable information, both basic and applied research, devoted to the sustainability of ecosystems and the biotechnological application of microbial communities. As a Guest Editor of the Special Issue, I invite you to submit research articles, review articles, and short communications related to the following topics:

• Characterization of microbial communities via high-throughput approaches (metagenomics, metabarcoding, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics, among others)
• Ecosystem biomonitoring through microbial diversity and functionality
• Biotechnological applications of microbial communities and microbial products
• Engineered microbial consortia and synthetic microbial networks
• Response of microbial communities to environmental changes

Prof. Pedro M. Santos
Dr. Pedro Castro
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Microorganisms is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.