Microbial ecology is a large field that includes many topics.
Click on one of the pictures below to learn more about that particular aspect of microbial ecology. This is one of the first questions that many people ponder. The study of the origin and early evolution of microorganisms may provide information on the critical early stages of life. Microbes were the first living creatures on Earth, first appearing over 3.7 billion years ago, long before multicellular plants and animals, which evolved 600 million years ago. Because microbes are simple relative to humans, they provide a model for understanding how evolution works an insight into the origin of all life on Earth.