EPISTEMOLOGY OF ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY

Despite critical geochemical roles of microorganisms in biosphere main tenance, knowledge of microorganisms as they function in soils, sedime nts, and waters is limited. Constraints on knowledge are caused largel y by methodologies that do not contend well with the complexity of fie ld sites, with the scale differential between microorganisms and human s, and with artifacts that may a rise in characterizing microorganisms using laboratory-based physiological, biochemical, genetic, and molec ular biological assays. A paradigm describing how knowledge is obtaine d in environmental microbiology suggests that the constraints on knowl edge will yield to relationships developing between methodological inn ovations and their iterative application to naturally occurring microo rganisms in field sites.