Methods and Techniques for Integrating Microbiomes into the One Health Concept

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editor

Christina Pavloudi

European Marine Biological Resource Centre (EMBRC-ERIC)

Christina Pavloudi is a data scientist at the European Marine Biological Resource Centre (EMBRC). She holds a PhD in marine sciences from Ghent University, Belgium, and the University of Bremen, Germany, which she completed from 2013 to 2017. She previously earned an MSc in Environmental Biology, specializing in the management of terrestrial and marine resources, from the University of Crete, Greece, and a BSc in Biology from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.During her doctoral research, Dr. Pavloudi investigated microbial community functioning in hypoxic ecosystems, including coastal lagoons and oxygen minimum zones, with particular emphasis on microorganisms involved in nitrogen and sulfur biogeochemical cycling. She has extensive experience in microbial ecology, metagenomics, and environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding, working with diverse sample types, including sediments, water, and host-associated samples. Her technical expertise includes PCR, high-throughput sequencing, RNA stable isotope probing, and bioinformatics. Her research interests encompass microbial ecology, marine biology and ecology, marine biodiversity, functional diversity, and bioinformatics.

Collection Overview

Microbes are the basis of biogeochemical cycling and, thus, of planetary health; shifts in microbial communities, as well as the prevalence and establishment of pathogens, can have cascading and detrimental effects on plant, animal, human, and ecosystem health.

At the basis of the One Health concept lies the notion that environmental, animal, and human health are interdependent; human health cannot be achieved when the environment is in a poor ecological state, and vice versa. Microbiomes, despite their intrinsic importance, are not sufficiently valued as a key component of the One Health concept. Understanding the interactions of microbial communities with higher organisms (e.g., plants, animals, and humans) is a crucial step toward ecosystem and public health.

This Topical Collection aims to compile protocols and methodological insights from real-world examples of the implementation of One Health approaches. Contributions should describe interactions between microbial communities and other One Health components and can be based around field sampling designs and methods, novel molecular and imaging approaches, data analysis/workflow tutorials, computation/interpretation of health-related indicators, etc.

The collection will serve as a resource for researchers aiming to design their One Health microbial ecology studies and will facilitate efficient sharing of methodology, promote reproducibility within the microbial ecology field, and operationalize microbiome-informed One Health approaches.