ReviewThe ISME journal2014
Implications of streamlining theory for microbial ecology.
Review in The ISME journal, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 448 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
448 citing papers in PubMed.
- Community succession and functional trait reorganization in a continuous aerobic denitrification reactor under repeated hydraulic retention time reductions.Bioprocess and biosystems engineering · 2026Article
- Comparative pangenomics unveils distinct host adaptation trends and conserved biosynthetic potential in microbiome Clostridia.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Deep-sea Microbial Dataset of the Antarctic Ocean (dsMDAO): A high-resolution deep-sea microbial dataset of the Antarctic Ocean reveals potential for taxonomic and functional diversity.Microbial genomics · 2026Article
- Functional-Taxonomic Scaling Resolves Conflicting Average Genome Size Estimates Across Environmental Gradients.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Vesicle-associated exudates fromApplied and environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Beyond monoculture limits: a critical review of yeast co-cultures for xylitol production from lignocellulosic biomass : Yeast co-cultures for xylitol production.World journal of microbiology & biotechnology · 2026Review
- The planktonic microbiome of the Great Barrier Reef.Nature · 2026Article
- Global microbial DNA signatures of temperature and nutrient limitation across ecosystems.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Effect of cellular nutrient economy on the evolution of genome size in phytoplankton.Science advances · 2026Article
- Horizontal Gene Transfer and Genome Rearrangements Shape Bacterial Adaptation for Bioremediation.Environmental microbiology · 2026Review
- A culturomics biobank decodes extremophile evolution and metabolism in acid mine drainage.Environmental science and ecotechnology · 2026Article
- Genome-wide analysis reveals structured ecological and functional divergence within Geobacillus stearothermophilus.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Rapid evolution in necromass use under resource limitation reduces persistence in producer-decomposer microbial biospheres.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Quantification of the coupled dynamics of marine microbes and reactive oxygen species in laboratory batch culture experiments.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- DNA viruses are constrained to ecological niches and share similar environmental adaptations with hosts.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The heterogeneous selection landscape of genome evolution in prokaryotes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- TrichoBase: a standardized genomic resource for comparative genomics of Trichoderma species.BMC genomic data · 2026Article
- Phosphoproteomics reveals essential regulatory roles of phosphorylation in marine oligotrophic bacteria.Marine life science & technology · 2026Article
- Unlocking Microbial Dark Matter: A Comprehensive Review of Isolation Technologies from Traditional Culturing to Single-Cell Technologies.Microorganisms · 2026Review
- Optimizing cetacean blow collection methods under controlled conditions: implications for further non-invasive UAV-based sampling of the cetacean respiratory microbiome in the wild.Animal microbiome · 2026Article
388 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Whether a small cell, a small genome or a minimal set of chemical reactions with self-replicating properties, simplicity is beguiling. As Leonardo da Vinci reportedly said, 'simplicity is the ultimate sophistication'. Two diverging views of simplicity have emerged in accounts of symbiotic and commensal bacteria and cosmopolitan free-living bacteria with small genomes. The small genomes of obligate insect endosymbionts have been attributed to genetic drift caused by small effective population sizes (Ne). In contrast, streamlining theory attributes small cells and genomes to selection for efficient use of nutrients in populations where Ne is large and nutrients limit growth. Regardless of the cause of genome reduction, lost coding potential eventually dictates loss of function. Consequences of reductive evolution in streamlined organisms include atypical patterns of prototrophy and the absence of common regulatory systems, which have been linked to difficulty in culturing these cells. Recent evidence from metagenomics suggests that streamlining is commonplace, may broadly explain the phenomenon of the uncultured microbial majority, and might also explain the highly interdependent (connected) behavior of many microbial ecosystems. Streamlining theory is belied by the observation that many successful bacteria are large cells with complex genomes. To fully appreciate streamlining, we must look to the life histories and adaptive strategies of cells, which impose minimum requirements for complexity that vary with niche.
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