FEMS Microbiology Ecology aims to publish high-quality papers that are original and provide a significant contribution to the understanding of microbial ecology. The journal contains Research Articles and MiniReviews on fundamental aspects of the ecology of microorganisms in natural soil, aquatic and atmospheric habitats, including extreme environments, and in artificial or managed environments. Research papers on pure cultures and in the areas of plant pathology and medical, food or veterinary microbiology will be published where they provide valuable generic information on microbial ecology. Papers can deal with culturable and non-culturable forms of any type of microorganism: bacteria, archaea, filamentous fungi, yeasts, protozoa, cyanobacteria, algae or viruses. In addition, the journal publishes Perspectives, Current Opinion and Controversy Articles, Commentaries and Letters to the Editor on topical issues in microbial ecology.

Handling Editors
Editor-in-Chief
Max M. Häggblom Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, USA.

Metal transformation; Biodegradation; Bioremediation; Anaerobic metabolism; Dehalogenation

orcidhttp://orcid.org/0000-0001-6307-7863



Senior Editors

Tillmann Lueders, Department of Ecological Microbiology, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany.

Subsurface and groundwater microbiology; Biodegration; Microbial biofilms; Microbial food webs; Stable isotope probing

orcidhttp://orcid.org/0000-0002-9361-5009

Tillmann Lueders

Julie Olson, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA.

Aquatic Microbiology; Community analysis; Host-symbiont interactions; Molecular microbial ecology; Nitrogen cycling



Angela Sessitsch, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Bioresources Unit, Seibersdorp, Austria.

Soil microbiology; Microbial diversity; Plant-microbe interactions; Bioremediation; Microarrays



MiniReviews Editor
Marcus Horn, Institute of Microbiology, Leibniz University, Hannover, Germany

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Editors and Specialist Fields
Ian C. Anderson, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, University of Western Sydney, NSW, Australia. 

Molecular microbial ecology; Soil microbiology; Fungal ecology; Fungal communities; Fungal-bacterial interactions; Rhizos  



Petr Baldrian, Institute of Microbiology of the ASCR, Prague, Czech Republic.

Carbon cycling; Enzymes and decomposition; Forest ecosystems; Fungal ecology; Molecular microbial ecology; Plant-microbe interactions; Soil microbiology

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Paolina Garbeva, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW), Wageningen, The Netherlands

Microbial chemical ecology; Microbe-microbe and plant-microbe interactions; Microbial metabolomics; Volatile-mediated interactions; Genome mining



Leluo Guan, Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, Alberta, Canada

Bovine rumen/gut microiome; Metagenomics and metatranscriptomes; Host-mcirobial interactions in cattle; Functional genomics (transcriptomes, mciroRNAomes); Cattle feed efficiency and methane emission; Bovine gut health



Martin W. Hahn, Research Department for Limnology, University of Innsbruck, Mondsee, Austria.

Freshwater microbiology; Bacterioplankton; Microbial genomics; Microbial diversity; Prokaryotic systematics; Isolation and cultivation

orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-0501-2556



Lee J. Kerkhof, Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, USA.

Molecular Microbial Ecology; Marine/Subsurface Microbiology; Community/Functional Gene Analysis; SIP/TRFLP

orcidhttp://orcid.org/0000-0001-9107-8695



Gary M. King, Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.

Marine microbiology; Microbial physiology; Methanogenesis; Sulfur cycle; Carbon cycle



Rolf Kümmerli, Institute of Plant Biology, University of Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.

Evolutionary microbiology; Socio-microbiology; Microbe-microbe interactions; Host-microbe interactions; Microbial communities



Cindy H. Nakatsu, Department of Agronomy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA.

Soil microbiology; Gastrointestinal microbiology; Microbial communities; Metal resistance; Bioremediation; Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE)



Kornelia Smalla, Julius Kühn Institute (JKI), Institute for Epidemiology and Pathogen Diagnostics, Braunschweig, Germany.

Soil microbiology; Microbial communities; Antibiotic resistance; Plasmids; Rhizosphere



Editorial Board
Denise Akob (Reston, VA, USA)

Siavash Atashgahi (Wageningen, The Netherlands?)

Mark J. Bailey (Oxford, UK)

Tamar Barkay (New Brunswick, NJ, USA)

Annette A. Bollman (Oxford, OH, USA)

John Bowman (Hobart, Tasmania, Australia)

Don A Cowan (Pretoria, South Africa)

Nicole Dubilier (Bremen, Germany)

Carol Duffy (Tuscaloosa, AL, USA)

Tom Fenchel (Helsingor, Denmark)

Kai Finster (Aarhus, Denmark)

Harry J. Flint (Aberdeen, UK)

Hannu Fritze (Vantaa, Finland)

Jizheng (Jim) He (Beijing, China)

Michael J. Hudson (Salisbury, UK)

Jenni Hultman (Helsinki, Finland)

Janet Jansson (Richland, WA, USA)

John Kelly (Chicago, IL, USA)

David L. Kirchman (Lewes, DE, USA)

Birthe V. Kjellerup (College Park, MD, USA)

George A. Kowalchuk (Heteren, The Netherlands)

Timothy M. LaPara (Minnesota, MN, USA)

Xiaogang Li (Kansas City, KS, USA)

Kristina Lindström (Helsinki, Finland)

Yahai Lu (Beijing, China)

Minna Männistö (Rovaniemi, Finland)

Diana Machado de Sousa (Wageningen, Netherlands)

Takahiro Matsuki (Tokyo, Japan)

Alan J. McCarthy (Liverpool, UK)

Rainer Meckenstock (Neuherberg, Germany)

Jim G. Mitchell (Adelaide, Australia)

Josh Neufeld, (Waterloo, Canada)

Graeme Nicol (Aberdeen, Scotland)

Ivonne Nijenhuis (Leipzig, Germany)

Balbina Nogales (Palma de Mallorca, Balearic Islands)

Klaus Nüsslein (Amherst, MA, USA)

James D. Oliver (Charlotte, NC, USA)

Lise Øvreås, (Bergen, Norway)

Kabir Peay (Stanford, CA, USA)

Laurent Philippot (Dijon, France)

Jeff Powell (Sydney, Australia)

James I. Prosser (Aberdeen, UK)

Kevin Purdy (Coventry, UK)

Antonio Quesada (Madrid, Spain)

Ralf Rabus (Oldenberg, Germany)

David Relman (Palo Alto, CA, USA)

Sung-Keun Rhee (Chungbuk, S. Korea)

Guus Roeselers (Zeist, The Netherlands)

Martin Romantschuk (Lahti, Finland)

Andreas Schramm (Aarhus, Denmark)

Patricia Sobecky (Tuscaloosa, AL, USA)

Bongkeun Song (Gloucester Point, VA, USA)

John F. Stolz (Pittsburgh, PA, USA)

Marek Stibal (Prague, Czech Republic)

Neslihan Tas, (Berkeley, CA, US)

Andreas P. Teske (Chapel Hill, NC, USA)

Ian Thompson (Oxford, UK)

Anders Tunlid (Lund, Sweden)

Leonard Simon van Overbeek (Wageningen, The Netherlands)

Timothy M. Vogel (Lyon, France)

Stephane Vuilleumier (Strasbourg, France)

Dirk Wagner (Potsdam, Germany)

Michael Wagner (Vienna, Austria)

Kazuya Watanabe (Tokyo, Japan)

Andy Weightman (Cardiff, UK)

Franco Widmer (Zürich, Switzerland)

Stephanie Yarwood (College Park, MD, USA)

Tong Zhang (Hong Kong, China)

Liping Zhao (Shanghai, China)