Metodología internacionalmente aceptada

III.1. Importance of Biodiversity

Microorganisms are important sources of knowledge about the strategies and limits of life and therefore they should be preserved. They are of critical importance to the sustainability of life on our planet. The untapped diversity of microorganisms is a resource for new genes and organisms of value to biotechnology. Diversity patterns of microorganism can be used for monitoring and predicting environmental change. Furthermore, microorganisms play a role in conservation and restoration biology of higher organisms. Microbial communities are excellent models for understanding biological interactions and evolutionary history. Genetic diversity enables researchers to develop improved strains for human needs. The conservation of biodiversity is fundamental to achieving sustainable development.

Figure 12, below, shows the number of species of all kinds of living organisms currently known.

Figure 12. Number of currently known living species of all organisms (http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/biodiversity/biodiversity.html).

Although extensive information has been generated on plant and animal biodiversity, little is known about microbial diversity, comprising an estimated 50% of all living populations on earth. There may be 1.5 million species of fungi, but only 5% are described and as many as 1-2 million species of bacteria, but only about 5,000 have been described.

Microbial diversity has driven and impacted life on Earth as well as the nutrient cycle, which are keys to the operation of biosphere. Microbes evolve more quickly than we can study them, providing an ever-increasing diversity of function for industrial application. In the soil profile, the microbial population mostly occurs within 40 cm of topsoil. Bacteria are predominant followed by the actinomycetes (belonging to the Gram-positive bacterial Phylum Actinobacteria) and fungi. High variation can be found in abundance of microbes between different soil types, seasons and land uses.

The greatest uncertainty in population counts is our inability to recover all the organisms in a culture or sample, as only about 5-10% of the soil organisms can be recovered. Large fractions of the microbial assemblage of any ecosystem are unculturable, and thus remain unchartered. The ability to obtain genomic libraries of uncultured microorganisms will further increase our knowledge and access to nature’s diversity, and supply future industry with new raw materials. Microbial diversity is a great source for biotechnological exploration of novel organisms, products and processes. Developed countries having the technology and resources to patent and develop commercial biological products, will have the benefits of biodiversity through the collected and conserved biological material (Tripathi

et. al., 2007; van der Heijden et. al., 2008).

III.1.1. Role of diversity in the use and conservation of microbes

Biodiversity loss continues, in part, because local benefits from wildland preservation are limited. Biodiversity development agreements (BDAs) intend, through bioprospecting efforts, to distribute benefits of biodiversity to those who bear preservation costs. Monetary returns from bioprospecting could be substantial, though realization of returns is uncertain and likely to take time. Considerable non-monetary benefits from BDAs have included training and increased infrastructure

and institutional capacity. BDAs probably will not finance desired land preservation, nor is it certain they can influence land use. Nonetheless, carefully structured BDAs can be useful components of biodiversity conservation programs (Day-Rubenstein and Frisvold, 2001).

III.1.2. Biodiversity: conservation and collections of microorganisms

Conservation of microorganisms is an open scientific field. It is not yet known what processes lead to the extinction of microorganism taxa or significant loss of genetic variability.

Plant pathogens are so difficult to diagnose in the first place, so a systematic approach to the characterization of biodiversity is required. However, the ever-shrinking human and technical capacity in this area means that work needs to be concentrated at key reference collection sites for the benefit of the global community. Microorganism collections preserve type of strains that represent key genetic entities by serving as living references for each functional group. Live reference collections at centralised and open-access facilities are needed in order to characterize the taxonomy and function of microorganisms as a prerequisite to the development of tools for diagnosis and detection (Barba et al., 2010). Such collections can also be used to increase awareness of the available living material through databases and web-based portals, and to provide access for research and capacity building. If submission of strains becomes a condition of acceptance for scientific publications, a system similar to the GenBank (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/) could be created to ensure the completeness of collections. Also, the conservation of all variants of any particular microorganism is necessary to permit the development of a diagnostic tool that encompasses all the known variants. This is critical as microorganism pathogens adapt rapidly in the face of selection pressure such as the mass deployment of resistant crop germplasm, and this evolution must be captured in tools used to monitor the presence or spread of pathogen species.

All data accrued on the variance of microorganism pathogens could also be sourced via centralised collections under the auspices of the World Federation for Culture Collections (www.wfcc.info/).

In situ conservation also has an important role to play. For example, ex situ conservation of wild

crop relatives depends on maintenance of appropriate microorganism communities, so that co- evolution among plants and microorganisms can continue. Determining what microorganism communities are most appropriate is challenging because of our limited knowledge of these interactions. Furthermore, because microorganisms are highly adaptive to new scenarios, such as those likely to be induced by climate change, ex situ collections of microorganisms may become outdated. Efforts are therefore required to advance in situ conservation methods for microorganisms.

Keeping the appropriate conservation of microorganisms is necessary in order to:

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Characterise the biodiversity at the ecosystem level using biochemical and molecular