Microbes add 20 major branches to the tree of life

Thousands of new tiny life forms are now being revealed by genetic analysisMany belong to entirely new populations, and other microbes, like insects and chimpanzees, are very differentThe results were published in the journal Nature-Microbiologymicrobes on Earth are divided into two large populations : bacteria and paleobacteriaTogether, they make up most of the species on Earth, but to this day only a small part of them has been studiedThis is because less than 10% of microbes can be isolated and cultured in the laboratoryOthers can only survive in the native environment, whether it's a deep-sea hot spring or a cow's intestinesThe researchers call them microbial "dark matter."but a technique called macrogenomics brought it to the lightThe technique involves taking environmental samples, sequencing all the DNA inside , the macro genome , and then piecing together the genomes of each of the microbes that appearDonovan Parks and colleagues from the University of Queensland in Australia analysed more than 1500 macro genomes uploaded to public databases by researchers from around the worldEach includes a mixed DNA sequence collected from a variety of environments such as soil, oceans, deep-sea hot springs, industrial waste, cattle and stoolthe team used computers to screen the mess and eventually reconstructed the genomes of 7,280 bacteria and 623 ancient bacteria -- about a third of the new species in scienceThese newly discovered microbes add 20 major branches, or groups, to the treenext step will be to discover what these new microbes look likeNicholas Coleman, from the University of Sydney, said: "Now we need to figure out what they are actually doing and how we can benefit from it"One way to is to scan their genomes to look for genes similar to those of some well-known organisms "For example, they may have genes that look similar to methane metabolism genes Parks said However, many genomes are brand new, so it takes longer to understand them the latest microbes could spawn new antibiotics They can also be used in industrial and environmental management, such as breaking down plastic pollution or manufacturing fuel and industrial chemicals "The more we know about bacterial diversity, the more useful things we can find "