At the end of my senior year at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1968, I took Professor Ehrlich’s final for his Geomicrobiology course. The above question beckoned to me like the Sirens to Odysseus, for if I answered, it would take so much time and thought that I would never get around to the exam’s other essay questions and consequently, would be “shipwrecked” by flunking the course. So, I ...

It is the great challenge of geomicrobiology to study microorganisms in the context of their environments, both in Earth’s distant past and in the present. Planet Earth and its biosphere have evolved together, and a chronicle of Earth’s ecosystems and their geochemical cycles is recorded in sedimentary rocks spanning billions of years. A relatively new and very powerful approach to read these s...

Terrance J. Beveridge (TJB) was a professor at the University of Guelph for nearly three decades. He died on September 10, 2007. TJB was a pioneer who pushed the frontier of microbiology and bacteriology. His legacy includes 22 postdoctoral scholars and 24 graduate students. His two dozen graduate student progeny have, in turn, mentored at least 52 additional graduate students. This paper prese...

Iron encrustations on filamentous algae colonized by Gallionella-related bacteria in a metal-polluted freshwater stream J. F. Mori, T. R. Neu, S. Lu, M. Händel, K. U. Totsche, and K. Küsel Institute of Ecology, Aquatic Geomicrobiology, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Dornburger Strasse 159, 07743 Jena, Germany Department of River Ecology, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, B...