Microorganisms exhibiting a high degree of phenotypic and genetic similarity; a pragmatic approach to demarcating “microbial species” using molecular biology tools has been 97% 16S rRNA sequence identity or 70% genome identity based on DNA-DNA hybridization; thus, microbial species are often defined by operational characteristics (operational taxonomic unit). The microbial species concept is still a matter of controversy. See entry “ Microbial Communities, Structure, and Function ” for further reading.
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© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
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Reitner, J., Thiel, V. (2011). Species (Microbial). In: Reitner, J., Thiel, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geobiology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9212-1_272
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9212-1_272
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