A Communal Catalogue Reveals Earth's Multiscale Microbial Diversity

Authors

• Luke R. Thompson, University of Southern MississippiFollow
• Jon G. Sanders, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• Daniel McDonald, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• Amnon Amir, University of California - San Diego
• Joshua Ladau, University of California, San Francisco
• Kenneth J. Locey, Indiana University
• Robert J. Prill, IBM Almaden Research Center
• Anupriya Tripathi, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• Sean M. Gibbons, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyFollow
• Gail Ackermann, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• Jose A. Navas-Molina, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• Stefan Janssen, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• Evguenia Kopylova, University of California - San Diego
• Yoshiki Vazquez-Baeza, University of California - San Diego
• Antonio Gonzalez, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• James T. Morton, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• Siavash Mirarab, University of California - San Diego
• Zhenjiang Zech Xu, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• Lingjing Jiang, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• Mohamed F. Haroon, Harvard University
• Jad Kanbar, University of California - San Diego
• Qiyun Zhu, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• Se Jin Song, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• Tomasz Kosciolek, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• Nicholas A. Bokulich, Northern Arizona UniversityFollow
• Joshua Lefler, University of California - San Diego
• Colin J. Brislawn, Pacific Northwest National LaboratoryFollow
• Gregory Humphrey, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• Sarah M. Owens, Argonne National Laboratory
• Jarrad Hampton-Marcell, University of Illinois
• Donna Berg-Lyons, University of Colorado
• Valerie McKenzie, University of Colorado
• Noah Fierer, University of Colorado
• Jed A. Fuhrman, University of Southern CaliforniaFollow
• Aaron Clauset, University of Colorado
• Rick L. Stevens, University of Chicago
• Ashley Shade, Michigan State University
• Katherine S. Pollard, University of California, San Francisco
• Kelly D. Goodwin, Southwest Fisheries Science CenterFollow
• Janet K. Jansson, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
• Jack A. Gilbert, University of ChicagoFollow
• Rob Knight, University of California - San DiegoFollow
• The Earth Microbiome Project Consortium

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-2017

Department

Biological Sciences

School

Biological, Environmental, and Earth Sciences

Abstract

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.

Comments

This article is made available through a CC BY 4.0 license. More information is available from the publisher's website: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature24621

Publication Title

Nature

Volume

551

Issue

7681

First Page

457

Last Page

463

Recommended Citation

Thompson, L. R., Sanders, J. G., McDonald, D., Amir, A., Ladau, J., Locey, K. J., Prill, R. J., Tripathi, A., Gibbons, S. M., Ackermann, G., Navas-Molina, J. A., Janssen, S., Kopylova, E., Vazquez-Baeza, Y., Gonzalez, A., Morton, J. T., Mirarab, S., Xu, Z. Z., Jiang, L., Haroon, M. F., Kanbar, J., Zhu, Q., Song, S., Kosciolek, T., Bokulich, N. A., Lefler, J., Brislawn, C. J., Humphrey, G., Owens, S. M., Hampton-Marcell, J., Berg-Lyons, D., McKenzie, V., Fierer, N., Fuhrman, J. A., Clauset, A., Stevens, R. L., Shade, A., Pollard, K. S., Goodwin, K. D., Jansson, J. K., Gilbert, J. A., Knight, R., , . (2017). A Communal Catalogue Reveals Earth's Multiscale Microbial Diversity. Nature, 551(7681), 457-463.
Available at: https://aquila.usm.edu/fac_pubs/17652