Marine Microbial Interventions to Support Ecosystem Recovery

Marine microbial communities are central to aquatic ecosystem functioning, biogeochemical cycles, host health, and the resilience of coastal and ocean environments. They can be deliberately introduced, engineered, or steered for purposes including ecosystem management, disease control, and marine and coastal restoration, yet the mechanisms governing how manipulated populations establish, persist, and interact with resident communities remain poorly understood. This Research Topic focuses on the microbial ecology of intervention within aquatic microbiology: how introduced or engineered microorganisms colonize new marine environments, compete or cooperate with native taxa, and integrate into, or fail to integrate into existing microbial and host-associated communities. Environmental stressors such as climate change, pollution, disease, and eutrophication provide important context and motivation because they are often the reasons interventions are attempted; however, the central focus is the underlying microbial mechanics and ecological processes rather than the threats themselves.Microorganisms are broadly defined in this Research Topic, and contributions spanning bacteria, archaea, fungi, protists, viruses, and mixed microbial consortia are welcome. Relevant approaches include candidate beneficial microorganisms, probiotics and microbial consortia, microbiome transplantation and engineering, microbial inoculation, virus-based approaches, microbial predators and biocontrol agents, pathogen-targeting microorganisms, synthetic microbial communities, and the manipulation of host-associated or environmental microbiomes in aquatic settings. Studies of microbial metabolites and signalling molecules used to modify community or host functions are also within scope. By connecting intervention biology with aquatic microbial ecology, this Research Topic seeks to clarify how deliberate manipulation affects the structure, function, stability, and ecological interactions of marine microbial communities.This Research Topic aims to advance mechanistic understanding of how marine microbial communities can be deliberately manipulated and how these interventions develop and function ecologically in aquatic environments. We particularly encourage studies in wild and natural systems, mesocosms, reef and coastal restoration efforts, and other natural marine environments that investigate why an intervention succeeds or fails at the community level. To gather further insights into the microbial ecology of intervention and its relevance to aquatic microbiology, we welcome contributions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:• Microbial colonization, establishment, persistence, and integration into resident aquatic communities• Competition and cooperation between introduced or engineered microorganisms and native taxa• Host–microbe interactions involving manipulated microbial communities in marine and other aquatic systems• Microbiome stability, resilience, and recovery following intervention• Functional consequences of introduced or engineered taxa for aquatic microbial communities and their hosts• Specificity and mechanisms of engineered microbial interventions• Responses of manipulated communities to climate change, pollution, disease, eutrophication, and other environmental stressors• Ecological risks, evolutionary dynamics, and long-term stability of manipulated microbial communities• Scalability, reproducibility, safety, and translational feasibility of microbial interventions, where relevant to the mechanistic focus and aquatic applicationsThis Research Topic is distinct from studies of contaminant-driven community shifts, including antimicrobial resistance under pharmaceutical, heavy-metal, or microplastic pressure. The focus is on intentional microbial interventions and manipulation in marine and aquatic environments, rather than passive community responses to environmental change. Considerations of scalability, reproducibility, safety, and translational feasibility are welcome but secondary to the mechanistic focus. We welcome Original Research, Reviews, Mini Reviews, Methods, and Perspectives articles that advance mechanistic understanding of how marine microbial communities can be deliberately manipulated and how these manipulations play out ecologically. Topic editors: Stephanie M Rosales, Anny Cardenas, Lauren Speare Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/85290/marine-microbial-interventions-to-support-ecosystem-recovery