New from the publisher of the premier journal Molecular Microbiology - a sister journal devoted to the study of microbial processes in the environment, microbial communities and microbial interactions.Over the last decade there has been a revolution in environmental microbiology and a corresponding explosion in the development of novel experimental approaches and techniques. This has injected tremendous excitement into the subject and attracted many new investigators from very different disciplines which have expanded the field, enriched it intellectually, and sharply increased its dynamism and importance.