Quantifying microbial dispersal rates in freshwater systems

Dispersal is an important process that determines the assembly of communities, including those of passively dispersed organisms, such as microorganisms.

Most studies estimate dispersal from the spatial distance between locations, which disregards the actual pathways by which microorganisms move through space. Here we will promote a landscape perspective to microbial dispersal where measurements of bacterial abundance and production are connected with flux measurements of physical and biological dispersal vectors (e.g. movement of water or animals). This will provide an important step forward to quantify the rates and range of dispersal as well as source and sink habitats in microbes.