Frontiers in Evolutionary and Genomic Microbiology is a Specialty Section of Frontiers in Microbiology.
The use of next-generation DNA sequencing methods is leading to exponential increases in available microbial genome data, which presents the microbiology research community with an exciting opportunity and responsibility to assign biological meaning to these data. Under ideal conditions, this process occurs through the collaborative efforts of researchers in multiple disciplines, including those with expertise in the particular organism or microbiome under investigation, those specializing in bioinformatics analysis, and those interested in experimental testing of the hypotheses generated from genome data. We are also privileged to now have access to a rich source of molecular chronometers for the reconstruction of microbial phylogenies. This allows us to not only generate improved representations of phylogenetic relationships among particular lineages of Bacteria and Archaea, but to develop new analysis methods suited to the specific properties of these genomes that distinguish them from one another and from eukaryotic genomes. This treasure-trove of phylogenetic markers also promises to revolutionize microbial systematics, and we envision Frontiers in Evolutionary and Genomic Microbiology as a vehicle for communicating exciting new applications of genomic data for microbial and molecular systematics. Standard descriptions of new taxa, while not explicitly discouraged, are probably best targeted toward existing journals catering to such descriptions. Our ultimate goal is to accelerate communications in the field and to stimulate research in evolutionary and genomic microbiology. We believe strongly that the novel features of the Frontiers publishing platform will facilitate both of these goals.
Frontiers in Evolutionary and Genomic Microbiology aims to publish significant research findings on all aspects of evolutionary and genomic microbiology for Bacteria and Archaea; similar information on eukaryotic microbes and viruses will be considered, but it is likely better placed in Frontiers in Evolutionary and Genomic Microbiology’s sister journals, Frontiers in Mycology and Frontiers in Virology, respectively. Specifically, Frontiers in Evolutionary and Genomic Microbiology welcomes papers that describe i) the evolutionary history of particular bacterial or archaeal lineages; ii) bacterial or archaeal systematic studies that include analysis of single genes or whole genomes; iii) analysis of single genome sequences or comparative analysis of multiple genomes from pathogens, symbionts, or free-living microbes; iv) global expression profiles determined at the RNA or protein level; v) the results of metagenomic, metatranscriptomic or metaproteomic analysis of both human-associated and environmental niches; vi) analysis of genome structure and maintenance; vii) synthetic genomics and metabolic engineering; viii) systems microbiology; ix) advances in genome sequencing approaches relevant to Bacteria and Archaea including single-cell methods; and x) new or improved tools for the analysis of genomes.
Frontiers in Evolutionary and Genomic Microbiology welcomes the following
tier 1 article types: Book Review, Editorial, General Commentary, Hypothesis & Theory, Methods, Mini Review, Opinion, Original Research, Perspective, Review and Specialty Grand Challenge.
All articles must be submitted directly to Frontiers in Evolutionary and Genomic Microbiology, where they are processed by the associate and review editors of the Specialty Section.
All articles published in Frontiers in Evolutionary and Genomic Microbiology will be subjected to the
Frontiers Evaluation System after online publication. Authors of the
original research articles with the highest impact, as judged by many expert readers, will be invited by the Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Microbiology to write a prestigious Frontiers
Focused Review - a tier 2 article. This is referred to as "
democratic tiering". The selection is based on the reader impact over a 4-month period from the date of publication. The selected high impact articles are re-written in a review style centered on the original discovery, and aim to address the wider audience across all of Microbiology.