Intro from our President 

We are living in an exciting time for microbial ecology research. The importance of microorganisms for life on our planet, environmental sustainability and human health is being increasingly recognized. This recognition is accompanied by an impressive growth in the microbial ecology scientific community and publication outputs, including those in our own ISME Journal that is recognized as the leading journal in our field.

As a community we are poised to address many research challenges including understanding, predicting and ultimately controlling processes carried out by microorganisms singly and in communities. Our analytical and experimental toolbox has expanded to the point that we are now able to tackle challenges in microbial ecology that were not possible even a decade ago.

As we are approaching this years fall season we are already busy planning for our conference to be held next summer in Montreal. The scientific program for ISME16 includes international leaders in the microbial ecology science community that will address key topics in our field. There will soon be an opportunity to submit topics for roundtable discussions at the conference so keep an eye out for those announcements on the ISME Website.

We are also still interested in receiving "Expressions of Interest" to host ISME18 in your region! The deadline is already next month, please find out more via this link .

Our ambassador program is also thriving and we are sponsoring more activities and workshops in many countries. We also have many other updates for our members in this newsletter.

I encourage all of you to start planning for the upcoming ISME16 conference and to take advantage of the other opportunities available to you as ISME members.

    
Janet Jansson
ISME President

Invitation from ISMEJ 

ISMEJ continues to receive and publish high quality, original research papers in microbial ecology, but we also publish a range of other article types. Since the beginning of this year, I have taken over the role of Special Reviews & Commentaries Editor, with responsibility for such articles.

The most prestigious review article is the annual Winogradsky Review, which is by invitation only. We also publish (mini-)reviews, that provide up-to-date reviews of specific areas; commentaries, that give a platform for opinions on journal papers or current issues; and perspectives, which enable authors to give their view on specific topics or issues.

For all of these articles, we are seeking originality and novelty. This may be reflected in synthesis or analysis of published work that generates new concepts or approaches with the potential to direct future research; new, personal and/or controversial opinions of new technical or conceptual developments; or new ways of addressing ecological questions. The borders between these article types can be blurred, but we adopt a flexible attitude and try not to worry too much about terminology.

I invite authors to write these articles, but am also keen to hear your views and suggestions on what is needed, e.g. research areas that might benefit from an authoritative review, and also authors who write well, have interesting ideas and whose opinions that you would like to see in print. You can also submit these articles, with the exception of the Winogradsky Review, directly to the journal but are strongly advised to send a pre-submission proposal outlining, briefly, the content of the article, why it is important and, importantly, evidence of originality and novelty. Suggestions for articles should be sent to the ISMEJ office, in the first instance. We currently have a healthy pipeline for these articles, but suggestions are always welcome and are one way in which the ISME membership can influence ISMEJ content. 

Jim Prosser
Reviews Editor The ISME Journal

Our Ambassador Reports 

By supporting regional microbial ecology meetings, the ISME Ambassador Program acts as a platform for the introduction of the microbial ecology discipline to the general scientific community in the region, as well as strengthen the connection with the local microbial ecology community.

Such was the Microbial Eco-Genomics in Agriculture meeting that was held on May 2015 in Israel and was organized by Dr. Eddie Cytryn (Agriculture Research Organization, Israel) and myself (Ben-Gurion University, Israel), assisted by Prof. Michael Sadowsky (University of Minnesota, USA) and Prof. Bryan White (University of Illinois, USA).

In my view, one of the important goals of microbial ecology is not only to understand the ecology of microorganisms around us, but also to learn how to interact in harmony with them. With this in mind, the objective of the meeting was to introduce state-of-the-art eco-genomic methods and demonstrate their potential implementations in agriculture, with the overall goal of enhancing sustainable and environmentally friendly food production.

With over 110 participants from 14 countries, the workshop brought together a highly acclaimed group of scientists working in various fields of microbial ecology. The symposium consisted of lecture sessions as well as plenty of time for scientific discussions, providing young scientists and students the unique opportunity to interact and exchange views with senior scientists from around the world.

With the sponsorship of the ISME Ambassador Program, providing financial support for the Student Poster Prize, close to 40 posters were judged by an independent committee with three winning posters:

Yaara Oppenheim-Shaanan (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel): "Mineral scaffolds enable the morphogenesis of bacterial biofilms"

Hannah Kleyer (ETH, Switzerland): "A synthetic soil microbial community assembly to quantify the effects of hydration dynamics on community composition and diversity"

Fotini Kokou (Agricultural Research Organization, Israel): "Niche specific microbiome composition across fish gastrointestinal tracts"

I believe that meetings such as this, as well as other ISME Ambassador Program activities, strengthen and promote the discipline of microbial ecology both globally and within the region.

Itzhak Mizrahi
ISME Ambassador
 

ISME16 update 

Planning for the ISME 2016 in Montreal in August 21-26, 2016 continues to progress. We are delighted to report that the scientific program consisting of 28 symposia has been finalized with most of the Symposia Convenors now confirmed and all of the Keynote Plenary Presenters have also accepted their invitations. The Local Organizing Committee of ISME16 (LOC 2016) is presently working closely with the ISME Executives and office to secure appropriate sponsorships and funding from a variety of organizations, companies, and institutions. The LOC 2016 and the ISME Executive will hold a telecon meeting on October 9 as preparations for ISME 2106 steps up.

Please note that the draft Scientific Program and other information is now online at the ISME 2016 conference website at http://www.isme-microbes.org/isme16

Please also note that the Abstract Submissions and Conference Registration opens on Jan. 1, 2016 and these portals can be accessed via the ISME 2016 conference website.

We are looking forward to welcome you to our beautiful city of Montreal to continue the highly successful ISME tradition of staging the premier international conference focused on microbial ecology and environmental microbiology!

Lyle White
Co-Chair LOC ISME16

Office Messages

And we have a winner! Thank you all for your votes. The winner of this years' cover competition is:

Felix Goldschmidt - Eawag, Confocal microscopy of bacterial colonies growing on agar plates. The bacteria were genetically engineered to construct synthetic cross-feeding communities and express different fluorescent proteins. The images show that simple ecological interactions can give rise to highly complex patterns. Image: Two Pseudomonas stutzeri strains cross-feeding nitrite.

This image will appear on the 2016 covers of The ISME Journal. Congratulations to Felix (and colleagues). Felix will receive a fully paid 2016 ISME membership. 

Finally, I would like to underline Janet Jansson's message above: the deadline for Expressions of Interest to host ISME18 in your country/region is October 11th 2015. There is no need for a full bid or long report yet, a filled in form will do for now so we know you are interested! More info can be found at: http://www.isme-microbes.org/bids 

Sarash de Wilde
Head ISME Office

Coming Events in Microbial Ecology