LAUSR

Nearly 100 years ago, Winogradsky published a classic communication in which he described two groups of microbes, zymogenic and autochthonous. When organic matter penetrates the soil, zymogenic microbes quickly multiply and degrade it, then giving way to the slow combustion of autochthonous microbes. Although the text was originally written in French, it is often cited by English-speaking authors. We undertook a complete translation of the 1924 publication, which we provide as Supporting Information. Here we introduce the translation and describe how the zymogenic/autochthonous dichotomy shaped research questions in the study of microbial diversity and physiology. We also identify in the literature three additional and closely related dichotomies, which we propose to call exclusive copiotrophs/oligotrophs, coexisting copiotrophs/oligotrophs and fast/slow growing microbes. While Winogradsky focused on a successional view of microbial populations over time, the current discussion is focused on the differences in the specific growth rate of microbes as a function of the concentration of a given limiting substrate. In the future it will be relevant to keep in mind both nutrient-focused and time-focused microbial dichotomies and to design experiments with both isolated laboratory cultures and multi-species communities in the spirit of Winogradsky's direct method. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.