Microbial Colonization in Marine Environments

Dear Colleagues,

The marine environment is the location of the installation of structures (port or offshore structures, artificial reefs), the discharge of materials (pollution), the circulation of ships, shipwrecks, and therefore the sanctuary of wrecks and their cargoes, for millennia. All these materials (cements, metals, polymers, wood, etc.) are colonized and undergo physicochemical and biological alterations. These degradations have significant economic and environmental consequences in a wide variety of areas (corrosion, pollution, historical artifacts surveys, and material durability).

The scope of this Special Issue is to highlight the more recent advances on marine bacteria colonizing materials, linked with biodeterioration/biodegradation questions. More specifically, it will focus on interactions between bacteria and materials in the marine environment.

In the field of the biodeterioration or biodegradation of materials, it is crucial not only to know who is present, but also who does what and how, in mechanisms that can be both problematic in terms of durability and beneficial in terms of resilience. While studies presenting metagenomic data describing microbial communities provide information that can be used to make predictions, they make it very difficult to test, confirm, or invalidate hypotheses about mechanisms or capacities for action. Isolating microorganisms, studying their characteristics, and being able to test them under specific conditions can provide answers that NGS data alone cannot provide, and also makes it possible to develop application processes. For this reason, studies presenting NGS data only will not be accepted. Studies presenting samples incubated in situ may be submitted. Studies presenting the description of new taxa may be submitted, provided that the type strain has been the subject of a study falling within the scope of this Special Issue.

Dr. Laurent Urios
Guest Editor

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• marine environment
• microbial colonization
• biodegradation