A new paper outlines how scientists came together to put together the first microbial conservation roadmap under the leadership of Applied Microbiology International President, Professor Jack Gilbert. 

In July 2025, IUCN formally launched the MCSG within its Species Survival Commission, co-chaired by Professor Gilbert and Raquel Peixoto (KAUST / ISME). This came out of a meeting that Professor Gilbert led in May of conservation experts and microbiologists to define the premise of conservation in a microbial world. 

This is the first global coalition dedicated to safeguarding microbial biodiversity, which is the ‘invisible 99% of life’, to ensure that microbes are recognized as essential to the planet’s ecological, climate, and health systems.

20 November 2025 / Kiel. So far, the ocean has helped to buffer global warming by absorbing more than 90 per cent of the excess heat trapped in the Earth system by the anthropogenic greenhouse effect. A new modelling study by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel has now examined how the ocean might respond if atmospheric carbon dioxide was drastically reduced in the future. The results show that, after centuries of cooling, the Southern Ocean could trigger renewed warming by releasing the stored heat back into the atmosphere. Whether this would occur as a single major “heat burp”, in many smaller pulses, or continuously over centuries remains unclear. The study has now been published in AGU Advances.

In mountain regions like the Rockies, headwater streams make up more than 70% of the river network and support the downstream waterways and communities. These headwaters are also home to many forms of aquatic life. While these sources are crucial, very few are monitored, and aspects of their hydrology are not well understood. A team of researchers, including UConn Department of Earth Sciences assistant professor Lijing Wang, are working to determine what influences how and when water moves through these streams, and what hidden source sustains them long after the rush of snowmelt. Their findings are published in Water Resources Research.