Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology, Isotope Analysis in Ecology, Polar Research and Ecology · 2017 · NatureLuke Thompson,
Jon G. Sanders,
Daniel McDonald,
Amnon Amir,
Joshua Ladau,
Kenneth J. Locey,
Robert J. Prill,
Anupriya Tripathi,
Sean M. Gibbons,
Gail Ackermann,
José A. Navas-Molina,
Stefan Janssen,
Evguenia Kopylova,
Yoshiki Vázquez‐Baeza,
Antonio González,
James T. Morton,
Siavash Mirarab,
Zhenjiang Zech Xu,
Lingjing Jiang,
Mohamed Fauzi Haroon,
Jad Kanbar,
Qiyun Zhu,
Se Jin Song,
Tomasz Kościółek,
Nicholas A. Bokulich,
Joshua Lefler,
Colin Brislawn,
Gregory Humphrey,
Sarah M. Owens,
Jarrad Hampton‐Marcell,
Donna Berg-Lyons,
Valerie J. McKenzie,
Noah Fierer,
Jed A. Fuhrman,
Aaron Clauset,
Rick Stevens,
Ashley Shade,
Katherine S. Pollard,
Kelly D. Goodwin,
Janet Jansson,
Jack A. Gilbert,
Rob Knight,
Jose L. Agosto Rivera,
Lisa Al-Moosawi,
John C. Alverdy,
Katherine R. Amato,
Jason Andras,
Largus T. Angenent,
Dionysios A. Antonopoulos,
Amy Apprill,
David Armitage,
Kate A. Ballantine,
Jiří Bárta,
Julia K. Baum,
Allison Berry,
Ashish Bhatnagar,
Monica Bhatnagar,
Jennifer F. Biddle,
Lucie Bittner,
Bazartseren Boldgiv,
Eric Bottos,
Donal M. Boyer,
Josephine Braun,
William J. Brazelton,
Francis Q. Brearley,
Alexandra H. Campbell,
J. Gregory Caporaso,
César Cardona,
JoLynn Carroll,
S. Craig Cary,
Brenda B. Casper,
Trevor C. Charles,
Haiyan Chu,
Danielle C. Claar,
Robert G. Clark,
Jonathan B. Clayton,
José C. Clemente,
Alyssa T. Cochran,
Maureen L. Coleman,
Gavin Collins,
Rita R. Colwell,
Mónica Contreras,
Benjamin B. Crary,
Simon Creer,
Daniel A. Cristol,
Byron C. Crump,
Duoying Cui,
Sarah E. Daly,
Liliana M. Dávalos,
Russell D. Dawson,
Jennifer R. DeFazio,
Frédéric Delsuc,
Hebe M. Dionisi,
Maria Gloria Domínguez-Bello,
Robin D. Dowell,
Eric A. Dubinsky,
Peter O. Dunn,
Danilo Ercolini,
Robert E. Espinoza,
Vanessa O. Ezenwa Our growing awareness of the microbial world's importance and diversity contrasts starkly with our limited understanding of its fundamental structure. Despite recent advances in DNA sequencing, a lack of standardized protocols and common analytical frameworks impedes comparisons among studies, hindering the development of global inferences about microbial life on Earth. Here we present a meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth's microbial diversity.
