Climate Change

Climate change will impact microbes, by potentially changing their habitats, providing different or increased metabolic sources and trigger changes in behavior or pathogenicity. Increased soil temperatures can cause increases in soil microbes and rates of metabolism potentially increasing carbon dioxide emissions. Warming soils may also reduce levels of moisture necessary for the survival of some microbes, while allowing others to flourish. In the aquatic environment, photosynthetic microbes or those that prefer warmer temperatures may trigger blooms. Cyanobacteria, often referred to as blue-green algae are increasingly blamed for fish kills and illnesses in humans through release of toxins during these blooms. Warming temperatures can allow pathogen carrying organisms such as insects and birds to colonize new areas and spread both wildlife and human disease.

Carbon Cycling Forests and Soil Biogeochemistry, Methanogen and Boreal Peatlands, Microbes and Response to Climate Change, Permafrost Microbiology	Disease Impacts Avian Malaria and Hawaiian Forest Birds, Avian Immunity and Climate Change, Climate Change and Fish Health
Permafrost Permafrost Microbiology	Symbiotic Adaptation Abiotic Stress, Adapted Symbiosis, Symbiotic endophytes, Salt tolerance, saltwater intrusion, Symbiogenics

• USGS Global Change Science
  

Scientists* Atkinson, Carter T. Hahn, Caldwell Kellogg, Christina A.   Mills, Christopher   Perakis, Steven Rodriguez, Russell J.   Waldrop, Mark P. Winton, James R.

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*this list of USGS scientists involved in microbiology and climate change is likely be incomplete