Uncultivated Microorganisms (Springer, 2009).pdf

Microbiology Monographs

Volume 10

Series Editor: Alexander Steinbüchel

Münster, Germany

Microbiology Monographs

Volumes published in the series

Inclusions in Prokaryotes

Volume Editor: Jessup M. Shively

Vol. 1, 2006

Prokaryotic Symbionts in Plants

Volume Editor: Katharina Pawlowski

Vol. 8, 2009

Complex Intracellular Structures in Prokaryotes

Volume Editor: Jessup M. Shively

Vol. 2, 2006

Hydrogenosomes and Mitosomes:

Mitochondria of Anaerobic Eukaryotes

Volume Editor: Jan Tachezy

Vol. 9, 2008

Magnetoreception and Magnetosomes

in Bacteria

Volume Editor: Dirk Schüler

Vol. 3, 2007

Uncultivated Microorganisms

Volume Editor: Slava S. Epstein

Vol. 10, 2009

Predatory Prokaryotes – Biology, Ecology

and Evolution

Volume Editor: Edouard Jurkevitch

Vol. 4, 2007

Microbial Megaplasmids

Volume Editor: Edward Schwartz

Vol. 11 2009

Amino Acid Biosynthesis – Pathways,

Regulation and Metabolic Engineering

Volume Editor: Volker F. Wendisch

Vol. 5, 2007

Endosymbionts in Paramecium

Volume Editor: Masahiro Fujishima

Vol. 12, 2009

Alginates: Biology and Application s

Volume Editor: Bernd H. A. Rehm

Volume 13, 2009

Molecular Microbiology of Heavy Metals

Volume Editors: Dietrich H. Nies and Simon Silver

Vol. 6, 2007

Microbial Linear Plasmids

Volume Editors: Friedhelm Meinhardt and

Roland Klassen

Vol. 7, 2007

Slava S. Epstein

Editor

Uncultivated Microorganisms

Editor

Dr. Slava S. Epstein

Department of Biology

134 Mugar Hall

Northeastern University

360 Huntington Ave

Boston MA 02115

USA

e-mail: slava.epstein@gmail.com

Series Editor

Professor Dr. Alexander Steinbüchel

Institut für Molekulare Mikrobiologie und Biotechnologie

Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität

Corrensstraße 3

48149 Münster

Germany

e-mail: steinbu@uni-muenster.de

ISSN 1862-5576

e-ISSN 1862-5584

ISBN 978-3-540-85464-7

e-ISBN 978-3-540-85465-4

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-85465-4

Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg London New York

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009929709

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Preface

In 1898, an Austrian microbiologist Heinrich Winterberg made a curious observation:

the number of microbial cells in his samples did not match the number of colonies

formed on nutrient media (Winterberg 1898). About a decade later, J. Amann quan-

tified this mismatch, which turned out to be surprisingly large, with non-growing

cells outnumbering the cultivable ones almost 150 times (Amann 1911). These

papers signify some of the earliest steps towards the discovery of an important

phenomenon known today as the Great Plate Count Anomaly (Staley and Konopka

1985). Note how early in the history of microbiology these steps were taken.

Detecting the Anomaly almost certainly required the Plate. If so, then the period

from 1881 to 1887, the years when Robert Koch and Petri introduced their key

inventions (Koch 1881; Petri 1887), sets the earliest boundary for the discovery,

which is remarkably close to the 1898 observations by H. Winterberg. Celebrating

its 111th anniversary, the Great Plate Count Anomaly today is arguably the oldest

unresolved microbiological phenomenon.

In the years to follow, the Anomaly was repeatedly confirmed by all microbio-

logists who cared to compare the cell count in the inoculum to the colony count in

the Petri dish ( cf., Cholodny 1929; Butkevich 1932; Butkevich and Butkevich

1936). By mid-century, the remarkable difference between the two counts became

a universally recognized phenomenon, acknowledged by several classics of the time

(Waksman and Hotchkiss 1937; ZoBell 1946; Jannasch and Jones 1959).

Surely the “missing” microbial diversity was as large then as it is now. However,

reading the earlier papers leaves an impression that throughout most of the 20 th

century the “missing” aspect was not viewed as a particularly important problem or

as an exciting opportunity. A casual mention was typical of many publications.

“Missing” cells were not necessarily considered missing species let alone signs of

novel classes of microbes. Besides, the unexplored microbial biodiversity was a

purely academic issue; the hunt for novel species as a resource for biotechnology

had not yet begun. It is also important that the reasons for the Anomaly appeared

rather simple at the time. Counting errors, dead cells, and later damaged cells were

continuously considered significant components of the disparity. Also, it had been

obvious at least since Koch’s time that no single nutrient medium could possibly

satisfy all microorganisms (Koch 1881), and so the finger was always pointing to

media deficiencies. Indeed, imperfections in media design was such a simple and

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