Here is your Saturday edition of the Digest. Four papers today about Arctic water and soil microbes, oral bacteria in placentas, using hand microbiomes to identify human ethnicities, and machine learning classifiers give insights in bacterial vaginosis.

Pregnancy and birth microbiome

Oral bacteria in placental tissues: Increased molecular detection in pregnant periodontitis patients – Vanessa Blanc – Oral Diseases

Human skin microbiome

Hand bacteria as an identifier: a biometric evaluation – Amanda B. Holbert – Network Modeling Analysis in Health Informatics and Bioinformatics

Minireview: From Head to Toe: Mapping Fungi across Human Skin – Tim Sandle – EC Microbiology

Human respiratory microbiome

Impact of cigarette smoking on the middle meatus microbiome in health and chronic rhinosinusitis – Vijay R. Ramakrishnan – International Forum of Allergy & Rhinology

Human gut microbiome

Metagenomic Analysis of Crohn’s Disease Patients Identifies Changes in the Virome and Microbiome Related to Disease Status and Therapy, and Detects Potential Interactions and Biomarkers – Pérez-Brocal, Vicente – Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Animal models

SIV-infection-driven changes of pattern recognition receptor expression in mesenteric lymph nodes and gut microbiota dysbiosis – Tiffany W. Glavan – Journal of Medical Primatology

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Diazotrophic bacilli isolated from the sunflower rhizosphere and the potential of Bacillus mycoides B38V as biofertiliser – A. Ambrosini – Annals of Applied Biology

Relationships between Oak powdery mildew incidence and severity and commensal fungi – E. T. Topalidou – Forest Pathology

The core microbiome bonds the Alpine bog vegetation to a transkingdom metacommunity – Anastasia Bragina – Molecular Ecology

Warming reduces the cover and diversity of biocrust-forming mosses and lichens, and increases the physiological stress of soil microbial communities in a semi-arid Pinus halepensis plantation – Fernando T. Maestre – Frontiers in Microbiology

Microbial Mineral Colonization Across a Subsurface Redox Transition Zone – Brandon Converse – Frontiers in Microbiology

Mutabilis in mutabili: Spatiotemporal dynamics of a truffle colony in soil – Milan Gryndler – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Water microbiome

Bacterioplankton community shifts associated with epipelagic and mesopelagic waters in the Southern Ocean – Zheng Yu – Scientific Reports

Microbial diversity in a submarine carbonate edifice from the serpentinizing hydrothermal system of the Prony Bay (New Caledonia) over a 6-year period – Anne Poste – Frontiers in Microbiology

Extremophile microbiome: Arctic edition

Microbial activity is not always limited by nitrogen in Arctic tundra soils – Caroline Melle – Soil Biology and Biochemistry

Arctic soil microbial diversity in a changing world – Aimeric Blaud – Research in Microbiology

Temporal and spatial influences incur reconfiguration of Arctic heathland soil bacterial community structure – Richard Hill – Environmental Microbiology

Diversity of planktonic microorganisms in the Arctic Ocean – Carlos Pedrós-Alió – Progress in Oceanography

Waste treatment microbiology

Shotgun metaproteomic profiling of biomimetic anaerobic digestion processes treating sewage sludge – Ariane Bize – Proteomics

Bioinformatics

Machine learning classifiers provide insight into the relationship between microbial communities and bacterial vaginosis – Daniel Beck – BioData Mining

AmpliSAS: a web server for multilocus genotyping using next-generation amplicon sequencing data – Alvaro Sebastian – Molecular Ecology Resources

Science, publishing, and career

My alma mater, Utrecht University was again voted as the best Dutch university! Academic Ranking of World Universities 2015 – Shanghai Ranking

Microbes in the news

The Microbial Discovery Box: a hands-on activity for science teachers – ASM

Young scientists dreaming big: internship presentation competitions – Uganda Virus Research Institute

Infectious Diseases Like It Hot: How Climate Change Helps Cholera and Salmonella Outbreaks – Marlene Cimons – Think Progress

Before an Animal Disease Becomes a Human Epidemic – Cari Romm – The Atlantic

The dangers of eating snakes: Gauteng pastor encouraged his congregation to eat hair and snakes.

Bik’s Picks

Air Problem Is Worse Than You Think – James Fallows – The Atlantic

Georgia court weighs destiny of 18 captured beluga whales – Rich McKay – Reuters

Los Angeles Throws 96M Balls At California’s Drought Problem – Science Daily

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