BIOGEOGRAFIA DE MICRORGANISMOS: PADRÕES, DIFICULDADES E PERSPECTIVAS.

Abstract

MicroorganisMs BiogeograpHY:  patterns, difficulties  and future
directions. The ecology and diversity of microorganisms, have received increasing attention with the
advancement of molecular tools. The molecular tools, like those based on the Polymerase Chain Reaction
technique (PCR) and metagenomics, allows the study of organisms that are not cultivable. The choice of
the molecular method could have implications for the level of resolution taxonomy of the study, in this
way; patterns of distribution of the diversity of microorganisms can arise when using techniques that allow
a more refined resolution. The main factors responsible for explaining the emergence of these patterns are
the biogeography speciation, the extinction and dispersal, procedures for which there is an expansion or a
contraction in the distribution of taxa. The size and abundance, along with the speciation of these organisms are
important factors to be considered for an area is still relatively new in the light of the ecology of multicellular
organisms and there is an intense debate about the distribution of these bodies. Thus there is a concern is
whether microorganisms are structured the same way as multicellular organisms. This review aims to present the conceptual and methodological limitations in the study of biogeography of procariotos and microbial
ecology. To discuss briefly the processes that can generate biogeography patterns. And finally submit the two
main currents exist for biogeography of microorganisms, the first is that microorganisms are widely distributed,
presenting a high local wealth, but a low overall wealth. The second stream argues that the microorganisms
present biogeography patterns as well as macroorganismos.
Keywords: Microbial ecology; microbial biogeography; molecular tools.