A communal catalogue reveals Earth's multiscale microbial diversity

0507287 - BÚ 2020 GB eng J - Journal Article
Thompson, L.R. - Sanders, J.G. - McDonald, D. - Amir, A. - Ladau, J. - Locey, K.J. - Bárta, J. - Liancourt, Pierre … Total 303 authors
A communal catalogue reveals Earth's multiscale microbial diversity.
Nature. Roč. 551, č. 7681 (2017), s. 457-463. ISSN 0028-0836. E-ISSN 1476-4687
Institutional support: RVO:67985939
Keywords : operon copy number * bacterial diversity * marine bacterial * global patterns * communities * nestedness * ontology * consistent * evolution * archaeal
OECD category: Microbiology
Impact factor: 41.577, year: 2017
Method of publishing: Open access

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.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0300048