Microbes matter: integrating microbial sequence information for biodiversity

Biodiversity Information Science and Standards

article

Kelly S Ramirez¹ 

[1] Netherlands Institute of Ecology

关键词: microbial ecology;    biogeography;    bacteria;    fungi;    sequence;   

DOI  :  10.3897/biss.2.26009

来源: Pensoft

【 摘 要 】

The large efforts to document and map aboveground biodiversity have helped to elucidate ecological and evolutionary mechanisms and processes, predict responses to global change, and identify potential management options in response to those changes. Yet these concepts have mostly been applied to aboveground plant and animal communities, while microbial diversity remains difficult to incorporate. The ability to integrate microbial sequence data into an accessible global infrastructure has previously been limited by a few key factors: First, most of microbial diversity remains undescribed and unknown; there is just an enormous amount of biodiversity. Second, there is a lack of congruence between the many disparate microbial datasets (e.g. taxonomy, phylogeny, and methodological biases), which limits the ability to monitor and quantify global patterns of the terrestrial microbiome. Finally, there is a lack of coordination and networking between scientists studying microbes. In this presentation I will discuss two case studies that highlight how we can begin to link microbial data to the already well-established macro-knowledge and other environmental databases (like global carbon maps)Study 1 – a megameta analysis: The emergence of high-throughput DNA sequencing methods provides unprecedented opportunities to further unravel microbial ecology and its worldwide role from human health to ecosystem functioning. However, in spite of the abundance of sequencing studies, combining data from multiple individual studies to address macroecological questions of bacterial diversity remains methodically challenging and plagued with biases.

【 授权许可】

Unknown