Microbial ecology is the study of microorganisms present in
nature. It particularly focuses on microbial interactions with
any biota and with surrounding environments. Microbial
ecology is entering its golden age with innovative multi-omics
methods
triggered by next-generation sequencing technologies.
However, the extraction of ecologically relevant information
from ever-increasing omics data remains one of
the most challenging tasks in microbial ecology. This special
issue includes 11 review articles that provide an overview of
the state of the art of omics-based approaches in the field of
microbial ecology, with particular emphasis on the interpretation
of omics data, environmental pollution tracking,
interactions in microbiomes, and viral ecology.