Towards Cataloguing Soil Bacteria: Preliminary Note.

Because of the importance of microorganisms as participants in ecosystems on the Earth, the International Union of Biological Sciences in cooperation with the international Union of Microbiological Societies have urged the initiation of a global diversity survey, provisionally called MICROBIAL DIVERSITY 21, aimed at the ultimate full identification of all species (10). The cataloguing of soil bacteria requires: 1) the estimation of microbial diversity in soil on a global scale; 2) the development of standard systems for sampling, identification and quantification of all known bacterial forms in any terrestrial habitat. The focus of our review is current taxonomic knowledge of soil inhabitants as a prerequisite for the inventory of microbial communities.