Professor Chris Greening in the field
Key points
- Microbes dominate biodiversity and are critical for society
- A new international body aims to safeguard them
- Monash expert says microbes must be conserved, just like plants and animals
A new global body will promote the conservation of microbes, which it argues are as important to the Earth's biodiversity as plants, animals and people.
Microbes include bacteria, viruses, fungi, algae and archaea (single-celled microorganisms with a bacteria-like structure).
They are invisible to the human eye, but play a huge role, shaping ecosystems, producing food and regulating disease.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Microbial Conservation Specialist Group, outlined in Nature Microbiology, will unite the environmental expertise of researchers globally to assess and prioritise microbes for conservation.
The group's Vice Chair - Climate Action, Professor Chris Greening from Monash University's Biomedicine Discovery Institute, said despite its importance, microbial life had been largely absent from global conservation efforts until now.
"Most people have a purely negative view of microbes primarily as pathogens, but most of them are good for us and we depend on them for almost every aspect of our lives," said Professor Greening, who won the 2023 Prime Minister's Prize for Life Scientist of the Year.
"They were the first life forms and our extreme distantly ancestors. They're also why our planet is habitable. They form our soils, break down our waste, underlie food production and make our medicines."
Professor Greening, who considers himself "an ambassador for microbes", said in all his work from research, translation, education and outreach, he continually emphasised how important microbes were and how we can harness them to do good.
"This is the first group set up to conserve microbes," he said. "Despite microbes being so foundational and vulnerable, they haven't ever been properly considered until now.
"Microbes are invisible, but they're not invincible and we're disrupting them at colossal scales, much to our detriment. Microbes will determine our future, whether we like it or not, but through better protecting and harnessing them we can safeguard our future."
The IUCN shapes conservation priorities across governments, non-governmental organisations and international treaties globally, and is particularly known for its Red List of endangered species. It launched the microbial conservation group in July.
Professor Greening's role involves assessing how climate change is impacting microbes and the services they provide humanity.
"An example of microbes at risk is coral bleaching," he said. "Corals rely on a partnership with Symbiodinium, photosynthetic microbes that provide them with most of their energy. The reefs they form deliver countless benefits, from fisheries and coastal protection to supporting tourism and biodiversity.
"Global warming disrupts this symbiosis, causing loss of the microbes, bleaching and death for the coral. This is why the Great Barrier Reef is collapsing, and since much of the damage is already locked in, the best hope for recovery and resilience lies in microbial solutions."
Human activities can also result in shifts from beneficial to harmful microbes. "The current South Australian algal bloom is just one example of the devastation that results when we disrupt microbes," Professor Greening said.
Through the IUCN, Professor Greening will also consider how we can use microbes to tackle climate issues, given that many of them naturally can remove greenhouse gases and even turn them into products.
"Wastewater treatment is a great example of how we can use microbes at scale to benefit our health and environments. Microbes are also the basis for the growing trillion-dollar bioeconomy," he said.
The Microbial Conservation Specialist Group convenes a global coalition of microbiologists, ecologists, traditional knowledge experts and conservation leaders to develop and advocate for conservation tools, strategies and policies that integrate microbiology into global biodiversity governance.
Its global network includes experts from low- and middle-income countries and Indigenous communities, to advise on conservation targets and build an evaluation scheme to assess conservation priorities. It will map these priorities by compiling and visualising global data on microbial ecosystems that are threatened by habitat destruction and anthropogenic activity.
From this, it will develop microbe-specific Red List criteria, the IUCN's globally recognised system to classify species at high risk of extinction, and map existing microbial conservation projects such as microbe-assisted coral protection and soil microbiome restoration.
Read the full paper published in Nature Microbiology: Launching the IUCN Microbial Conservation Specialist Group as a global safeguard for microbial biodiversity.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-025-02113-5
About the Monash Biomedicine Discovery InstituteCommitted to making the discoveries that will relieve the future burden of disease, the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) at Monash University brings together more than 120 internationally-renowned research teams. Spanning seven discovery programs across Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease, Development and Stem Cells, Infection, Immunity, Metabolism, Diabetes and Obesity, and Neuroscience, Monash BDI is one of the largest biomedical research institutes in Australia. Our researchers are supported by world-class technology and infrastructure, and partner with industry, clinicians and researchers internationally to enhance lives through discovery.
