Xylan degradation: a glimpse at microbial diversity

The key to taking the measure of biodiversity lies in a downward adjustment of scale. . .Most of the Earth’s largest species—mammals, birds, and trees—have been seen and documented. But microwildernesses exist in a handful of soil or aqueous silt collected almost anywhere in the world. . .Bacteria, protistans, nematodes, mites and other minute creatures swarm all around us, an animate matrix that binds the Earth’s surface. Edward O Wilson (1994. Naturalist. Island Press, Washington, DC)