Research in ecosystem services provided by bacteria, archaea, and viruses from inland waters: synthesis of main topics and trends over the last ca. 40 years

Abstract

Text-analysis tools focused on limnology research allowed us to find three approaches in the analysis of ecosystems services (ES) provided by bacteria, archaea and viruses: (i) a prevalence of taxonomic analyses focused on the relevance of microbial biodiversity in sustaining ES, (ii) studies focused on diversity and functional aspects of bacteria, archaea and viruses and their ES provided and (iii) research focused on disservices. Supporting, regulating and provisioning services were the most discussed. Significant gaps include knowledge about the ecological traits of prokaryotic taxa and viral particles, quantitative information on microbial community-level functions integrated through different ecosystems, and a deeper integration of positive and negative microbial community functional attributes and their feedbacks to ecosystem services provision. Future research should include: (i) development of new bioinformatic tools coupled to theoretical and methodological frameworks leading to a more powerful analysis of metagenomic data, (ii) inclusion of earth observation data for comprehensive modeling of large-scale assessment of ES and its valuation, (iii) advance investigation on the ecological processes that viruses support in the environment and its significance for the ecological performance of microbial communities’ services provision.