The major goal of microbial ecology is to study the structure and function of complex microbial communities. New molecular biological techniques have been successfully applied to analyze microbial community structure. However they do not provide information on the physiologic properties of the detected microorganisms. A new tool for structure-function analyses in microbial ecology, microautoradiography combined with fluorescence in situ hybridization (MAR-FISH) can be used to simultaneously examine the phylogenetic identity and the specific activity of microorganisms within a complex microbial community at a single-cell level. This article reviews the principle, experimental steps of MAR-FISH technique. The application of this technique in study of the environmental microbial community and function is also summarized.
