Let's protect Earth's unseen life

Microbes are being failed by existing conservation efforts. We need a global strategy to ensure their survival

Earth | Comment 29 February 2012
Let's protect Earth's unseen life

“IF THE last blue whale choked to death on the last panda, it would be disastrous but not the end of the world. But if we accidentally poisoned the last two species of ammonia oxidisers, that would be another matter. It could be happening now and we wouldn’t even know.”


The neglected kingdoms are broadly microbial and comprise by any measure, be it their biomass or genetic diversity, the “unseen majority” of life. Are only “macrobes” at risk of extinction or are only those organisms visible to the naked eye worthy of conservation?

“Are only ‘macrobes’ at risk of extinction or organisms visible to the naked eye worthy of conservation?”


No. Microbes may appear endlessly abundant, everywhere and to an extent interchangeable, but some do face real threats to their existence. The problem is that microbes, for reasons including a lack of descriptive data, are not easily accommodated within the 1993 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which seeks to preserve diversity. That’s why I propose a formal Global Strategy for Microbial Conservation.

You only have to look at mainstream conservation journals to see the macrobial bias: only 2 per cent of papers relate to microbes, and even then mostly as threats to larger organisms rather than being concerned with their preservation.

Whereas the chiefly single-celled prokaryotes barely figure in the CBD, fungi at least get a mention in the updated Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, which is part of the convention: “Parties may choose on a national basis to include other taxa, including algae, lichens and fungi.” However, the implication of subordinate status is clear.

Yet fungi are the dominant decomposers of plant-derived lignocellulose, the major structural component of all plants, releasing nutrients from dead material to the soil, vital for agriculture. Given that fungi supply core ecological functions that are beneficial to humankind, it is perplexing that they are afforded such meagre attention and protection.

There is a much overused phrase in microbiology – “everything is everywhere, but the environment selects” – which suggests that microbial populations are not localised but geographically ubiquitous, and unlikely to be at risk. Some, such as bacteria on leaf surfaces, do appear to be ubiquitous, but many others are not. This is also the case for many pathogens of humans, animals or crops, which have, or had until humans transported them, well-defined distributions. So habitat change in a limited area may threaten them.


Central to our improved understanding of all this is DNA barcoding, which allows the detection of uncultured and unseen microbes. High-throughput sequencing of environmental samples is now cheap. This is revealing many undescribed taxa and extensive cryptic speciation – groups of microbes that look very similar but are distinct species. Importantly it is also providing detailed maps of distribution.


One topical example is Lake Vostok, 4 kilometres beneath the Antarctic ice, where a Russian drilling programme recently reported breaching the lake surface. The indigenous biota, currently unknown and possibly unique, is at risk of destruction by the introduction of surface lifeforms. The potential exploration of other deep sea or subsurface ecosystems will raise other “Schrödinger’s cat” dilemmas.



Finally, all conservation efforts are ultimately funded by the public and here education is needed to counteract negative perceptions, such as that all bacteria are “bad” or all fungi are “poisonous”. It should also highlight the beauty and biotechnological usefulness of microbes, as well as their fundamental importance to the wider living world.