Proceedings of the U.S. Geological Survey Interdisciplinary Microbiology Workshop, Estes Park, Colorado, October 15-17, 2008

Preface
A U.S. Geological Survey Interdisciplinary Microbiology Workshop was held in Estes Park, Colorado, on October 15-17, 2008. Participants came from all USGS regions and disciplines.

This report contains abstracts from 36 presentations and 35 poster sessions and notes from 5 breakout sessions. The seven presentation topics follow:

Ecology of wildlife and fish disease
Mechanisms of fish and wildlife disease
Microbial ecology
Geographic patterns/visualization
Public health and water quality
Geomicrobiology
Ecosystem function
The six poster session topics follow:

Wildlife disease
Disease detection methods
Water quality
Microbial ecology
Metabolic processes
Tools and techniques
Five working groups met in breakout sessions on October 16, 2008. The highlights for each working group are summarized in this report, and their goals are listed below:

Working Group I: to plan a Fact Sheet on interdisciplinary microbiology in the USGS
Working Group II: to plan a USGS interdisciplinary microbiology Web site
Working Group III: to suggest ways to broadcast and publicize the types of microbiology conducted at the USGS
Working Group IV: to identify emerging issues in USGS interdisciplinary microbiology research
Working Group V: to identify potential opportunities for interdisciplinary microbiology work at the USGS
After the workshop, the USGS interdisciplinary microbiology Web site was activated in June 2009 at http://microbiology.usgs.gov/.