Analysing the consequences of the decrease in biodiversity for ecosystem functioning and stability has been a major concern in ecology. However, the impact of decline in soil microbial diversity on ecosystem sustainability remains largely unknown. This has been assessed for decomposition, which is insured by a large proportion of the soil microbial community, but not for more specialized and le...

introduction: ventilator-associated pneumonia (vap) is one of the most common hospital infections and a side effect of lengthy stay in intensive care unit (icu). considering the ever-changing pattern of common pathogens in infectious diseases and the raise in prevalence of hospital infections, the present study was designed aiming to determine the prevalence of vap and its bacterial causes. met...

Multidrug resistance (MDR) plasmids frequently carry antibiotic resistance genes conferring qualitatively different mechanisms of resistance. We show here that the antibiotic concentrations selecting for the RK2 plasmid inEscherichia colidepend upon the sociality of the drug resistance: the selection for selfish drug resistance (efflux pump) occurred at very low drug concentrations, just 1.3% o...

Rainfall in Mediterranean climates may affect soil microbial processes and communities differently in agricultural vs. grassland soils. We explored the hypothesis that land use intensification decreases the resistance of microbial community composition and activity to perturbation. Soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) dynamics and microbial responses to a simulated Spring rainfall were measured in ...