Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Consequences of living in an industrial world
- 2 Metallophytes: the unique biological resource, its ecology and conservational status in Europe, central Africa and Latin America
- 3 Lichens and industrial pollution
- 4 The impacts of metalliferous drainage on aquatic communities in streams and rivers
- 5 Impacts of emerging contaminants on the environment
- 6 Ecological monitoring and assessment of pollution in rivers
- 7 Detecting ecological effects of pollutants in the aquatic environment
- 8 With the benefit of hindsight: the utility of palaeoecology in wetland condition assessment and identification of restoration targets
- 9 An ecological risk assessment framework for assessing risks from contaminated land in England and Wales
- 10 Diversity and evolution of micro-organisms and pathways for the degradation of environmental contaminants: a case study with the s-triazine herbicides
- 11 The microbial ecology of land and water contaminated with radioactive waste: towards the development of bioremediation options for the nuclear industry
- 12 The microbial ecology of remediating industrially contaminated land: sorting out the bugs in the system
- 13 Ecological recovery in a river polluted to its sources: the River Tame in the English Midlands
- 14 Manchester Ship Canal and Salford Quays: industrial legacy and ecological restoration
- 15 Large-scale mine site restoration of Australian eucalypt forests after bauxite mining: soil management and ecosystem development
- 16 Sustaining industrial activity and ecological quality: the potential role of an ecosystem services approach
- Index
- Plate section
- References
10 - Diversity and evolution of micro-organisms and pathways for the degradation of environmental contaminants: a case study with the s-triazine herbicides
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Consequences of living in an industrial world
- 2 Metallophytes: the unique biological resource, its ecology and conservational status in Europe, central Africa and Latin America
- 3 Lichens and industrial pollution
- 4 The impacts of metalliferous drainage on aquatic communities in streams and rivers
- 5 Impacts of emerging contaminants on the environment
- 6 Ecological monitoring and assessment of pollution in rivers
- 7 Detecting ecological effects of pollutants in the aquatic environment
- 8 With the benefit of hindsight: the utility of palaeoecology in wetland condition assessment and identification of restoration targets
- 9 An ecological risk assessment framework for assessing risks from contaminated land in England and Wales
- 10 Diversity and evolution of micro-organisms and pathways for the degradation of environmental contaminants: a case study with the s-triazine herbicides
- 11 The microbial ecology of land and water contaminated with radioactive waste: towards the development of bioremediation options for the nuclear industry
- 12 The microbial ecology of remediating industrially contaminated land: sorting out the bugs in the system
- 13 Ecological recovery in a river polluted to its sources: the River Tame in the English Midlands
- 14 Manchester Ship Canal and Salford Quays: industrial legacy and ecological restoration
- 15 Large-scale mine site restoration of Australian eucalypt forests after bauxite mining: soil management and ecosystem development
- 16 Sustaining industrial activity and ecological quality: the potential role of an ecosystem services approach
- Index
- Plate section
- References
Summary
Introduction
On 7 December 1854, Louis Pasteur is quoted as saying ‘Dans les champs de l'observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés.’ This statement, which has been often translated as ‘Chance favours the prepared mind’, can, after slight modification, also be applied to the interaction of micro-organisms with anthropogenic growth substrates. Namely, that chance favours the prepared bacterium! Given the strong selection pressure for growth of microorganisms in natural environments, microbial species that have the ability to rapidly acquire new genes that allow them to utilise newly introduced anthropogenic compounds gain a selective advantage for growth over others living in the same environment. This may eventually lead to changes in microbial populations and community structure over time.
While the evolution of microbial genes, and even pathways, for the catabolism of novel compounds released into the environment was originally thought to take long periods of time (on an evolutionary scale), recent evidence indicates that microbes and their genomes are relatively plastic (Jain et al.2002; Mira et al. 2002), and as such can evolve the ability to utilize new carbon and energy sources in a relatively short time frame, from years to tens of years (Seffernick & Wackett 2001). This phenomenon has led to paradigm shifts in the way in which we view microbial evolution and the potential impact of anthropogenic perturbations on microbial processes.
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- Ecology of Industrial Pollution , pp. 205 - 225Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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