Microbial ecology can show us our place in the cosmos — how life originated and how it evolved, and how we are related to the great diversity of all other organisms.
The study of microbial ecology can help us improve our lives via the use of microbes in environmental restoration, food production, bioengineering of useful products such as antibiotics, food supplements, and chemicals. The study of these bizarre and diverse creatures that are everywhere yet nowhere to be seen is fascinating and a pursuit that appeals to the curiousity and playfulness in us.
Most types of microbes remain unknown. It is estimated that we know fewer than 1% of the microbial species on Earth. Yet microbes surround us everywhere — air, water, soil. An average gram of soil contains one billion (1,000,000,000) microbes representing probably several thousand species.