Applied and Environmental Microbiology (AEM) publishes papers that make significant contributions to (a) applied microbiology, including biotechnology, protein engineering, bioremediation, and food microbiology, (b) microbial ecology, including environmental, organismic, and genomic microbiology, and (c) interdisciplinary microbiology, including invertebrate microbiology, plant microbiology, aquatic microbiology, and geomicrobiology. AEM welcomes microbiome studies that address the microbiology and function of natural or experimental systems.