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Conservation biology has traditionally focused on what can be seen: forests, coral reefs, mammals, birds and flowering plants. Yet the living systems that sustain those visible forms of life are, to a remarkable extent, microbial. Microorganisms regulate the major biogeochemical cycles, influence climate-relevant gas fluxes, underpin soil fertility, shape marine productivity and contribute fundamentally to the health of animals and plants, including humans. Despite this, microbes have remained largely peripheral to global conservation policy. That imbalance is now being challenged in a significant way through the creation of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission’s Microbial Conservation Specialist Group (MCSG), approved in June and formally launched in 2025.
By Tim Sandle
The importance of this development should not be underestimated. The recent paper led by Jack Gilbert and colleagues in Sustainable Microbiology sets out what is, in effect, the first structured roadmap for microbial conservation. It argues that microorganisms are not a peripheral component of biodiversity, but its foundation. This is consistent with a growing body of literature that has warned that conservation frameworks have historically neglected microbes, even though microbial diversity and function are integral to ecosystem resilience, food security and planetary health. Redford and co-authors have previously made the case that conservation must be extended to include Earth’s microbiome, while broader assessments of soil biodiversity have reinforced how deeply microbial processes are tied to climate regulation, nutrient cycling and agricultural productivity.
Understanding microbial community loss
There is also a scientific reason why this agenda has arrived now. We are moving from a descriptive era of microbiology into one where microbial community loss, disruption and replacement can increasingly be observed and interpreted. In soils, aquatic systems and host-associated microbiomes, anthropogenic pressures including land-use change, pollution, industrialisation and climate change are altering microbial community structure and function. In human-associated microbiota, industrialised lifestyles have been associated with the erosion of microbial diversity and function, prompting the suggestion that microbiota science should borrow conceptual tools from macroecology and conservation. The microbial conservation agenda is therefore not speculative; it is a response to a mounting evidence base that the microbial biosphere is vulnerable and that losses can have ecological and health consequences.
What makes the MCSG especially noteworthy is that it moves the discussion from principle to programme. According to the roadmap, the group has assembled expertise from more than 30 countries and is structuring its work around the IUCN Species Conservation Cycle: assessment, planning, action, networking, and communication and policy. In practice, this means developing Red List-compatible tools for microbial communities, building ethical and economic frameworks for interventions, piloting field applications such as coral probiotics and soil microbiome restoration, connecting scientists with culture collections and custodians of microbial knowledge, and making microbial life visible in public and policy discourse. These are not abstract ambitions; they are mechanisms for embedding microbiology into mainstream biodiversity governance.
Community integrity
Of these elements, the assessment challenge is perhaps the most intellectually difficult. Traditional conservation tools were developed for discrete, named species with reasonably stable taxonomies and observable ranges. Microbial life seldom conforms to these assumptions. Species concepts are contested, taxonomies are dynamic, and the relevant unit of conservation may be an individual taxon, a functional guild, or a whole community. The MCSG’s proposed focus on “community integrity”, “functional collapse” and habitat specificity is therefore a pragmatic and scientifically mature response. It recognises that microbial conservation cannot simply replicate the plant-and-animal model; it must adapt conservation logic to the realities of microbial ecology.
There is also a second challenge: conservation is no longer only about what to protect, but how to intervene responsibly. The literature increasingly points to microbiome-based tools as active components of restoration, from coral probiotics to wildlife health interventions and soil carbon management. Raquel Peixoto’s work on coral probiotics is particularly relevant here, demonstrating that microbiology can support resilience and recovery rather than serving merely as a diagnostic science. Yet any move from observation to intervention demands governance. Microbial restoration, biobanking and engineered manipulation all require risk-benefit assessment, ecological caution and an explicit ethical framework. The MCSG seems to appreciate this point and is wise to treat planning and ethics as central, rather than secondary, pillars.
A further strength of the roadmap is its recognition that microbial conservation cannot be separated from questions of access, rights and knowledge. This is particularly important where human-associated or place-based microbiomes intersect with Indigenous communities. Recent scholarship has argued for relational frameworks for microbiome research, emphasising reciprocity, benefit-sharing and community-led oversight. Other authors have shown that Indigenous knowledge can broaden microbial science by placing microorganisms within ecological, cultural and land-based relationships rather than treating them purely as objects of extraction or technical intervention. If microbial conservation is to succeed, it must not reproduce the old extractive habits of science. The inclusion of Indigenous knowledge holders in the MCSG is therefore more than symbolic; it is a necessary condition for legitimacy.
Biobanking is central
The biobanking dimension is equally important. Conservation requires baselines, archives and the ability to revisit what has been lost or changed. The MCSG’s intention to connect existing biobanks and culture collections into a coordinated global archive aligns with other emerging efforts, such as the Microbiota Vault initiative, which has argued that microbial ecosystems are fundamental to planetary and human health yet are being eroded by human activity. A global network of microbial archives will not solve the conservation problem by itself, but it does provide an infrastructure for surveillance, reference, restoration and research, particularly for undersampled environments such as deep oceans, aquifers, deserts and the cryosphere.
What, then, might success look like? In practical terms, it would mean that by the end of this decade microbial indicators are incorporated into biodiversity policy alongside plants and animals; that microbial hotspots are mapped and monitored; that national conservation strategies include soil, aquatic and host-associated microbial systems; and that One Health and climate frameworks recognise microbial ecology as foundational rather than incidental. It would also mean improving what might be termed public microbial literacy: recognising that microbes are not merely pathogens or laboratory curiosities, but the living infrastructure of ecosystems. This is the real conceptual shift. Microbial conservation asks us to move beyond charismatic biodiversity and towards process-based biodiversity—to conserve not only what life looks like, but how life works.
In this sense, the MCSG represents both a scientific advance and a philosophical one. It expands conservation from an emphasis on visible species to an appreciation of the invisible networks that make ecosystems functional and resilient. For microbiologists, that is a welcome and overdue reframing. For conservationists, it is a reminder that the biosphere cannot be protected if its microbial foundations remain ignored. And for policymakers, it is an invitation—perhaps a challenge—to build conservation frameworks that finally reflect biological reality. The invisible majority has been neglected for too long. Bringing it into policy is not an optional refinement; it is the next logical step in safeguarding planetary health.
See: Safeguarding microbial biodiversity: microbial conservation specialist group within the species survival commission of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Sustainable Microbiology, 2025; 2 (4) DOI: 10.1093/sumbio/qvaf024