Highlights: Harnessing principles of ecology and engineering in building microbiome, community ecology perspective of human microbiome, rhizospheric microbes, soil viruses and many more.

General microbiome

Regulating microbiome manipulation – Kjersti Aagaard – Nature Medicine

Towards a Better Understanding of Microbial Community Dynamics through High-Throughput Cultivation and Data Integration – Karoline Faust – mSystems

Reconciling Ecological and Engineering Design Principles for Building Microbiomes – Hans C. Bernstein – mSystems

Community ecology as a framework for human microbiome research – Jack A Gilbert – Nature Medicine

Multi-site human microbiome

Age-dependent dissimilarity of the nasopharyngeal and middle ear microbiota in children with acute otitis media – Silvio D. Brugger – Frontiers in Genetics

Human gut microbiome

Micronutrient requirements and sharing capabilities of the human gut microbiome – Dmitry A Rodionov – Frontiers in Microbiology

Animal experiments 

Mouse microbiomes: overlooked culprits of experimental variability – Maria-Luisa Alegre – Genome Biology

Animal microbiome 

Microbial communities associated with the parasitic copepod Lepeophtheirus salmonis – S. Dalvin – Marine Genomics

Gut microbiome differences between wild and captive black rhinoceros – implications for rhino health – Keylie M. Gibson – Scientific Reports

Not all animals need a microbiome – Tobin J Hammer – FEMS Microbiology Letters

The Microbiome of the Maculinea-Myrmica Host-Parasite Interaction – Marco Di Salvo – Scientific Reports

Plant, root, and soil microbiome

Soil photosynthetic microbial communities mediate aggregate stability: influence of cropping systems and herbicide use in an agricultural soil – Olivier Crouzet – Frontiers in Microbiology

Fluazinam positively affected the microbial communities in clubroot cabbage rhizosphere – Chunming Liu – Scientia Horticulturae

Soil microbiome mediates positive plant diversity‐productivity relationships in late successional grassland species – Guangzhou Wang – Ecology Letters

A water stress-adapted inoculum affects rhizosphere fungi, but not bacteria nor wheat – Charlotte Giard-Laliberté – Microbiology Ecology

Variations in phyllosphere microbial community along with the development of angular leaf-spot of cucumber – Luyun Luo – AMB Express

Built environment 

Effects of biochar on the phenol treatment performance and microbial communities shift in sequencing batch reactors – Shengnan Shi – Water Research

Effects of ozone treatment on performance and microbial community composition in biofiltration systems treating ethyl acetate vapours – Itzel Covarrubias-García – Chemosphere

Phages and viruses

Characterization of the virome of Paracoccus spp. (Alphaproteobacteria) by combined in silico and in vivo approaches – Przemyslaw Decewicz – Scientific Reports

Soil Viruses: A New Hope – Joanne B. Emerson – mSystems