, 2011) is a massively multidisciplinary and collaborative international study aimed at characterising the Earth’s microbial

diversity and function. The study is predicated on crowd-sourcing environmental samples from researchers across the planet, extracting these samples with a single DNA extraction technology (MoBio’s PowerSoil extraction kit), and then processing these samples initially for 16S rRNA amplicon metagenetics, and then processing a subset for shotgun metagenomics. The study has processed and sequenced more than 20,000 environmental samples in the last 2 years, and aims to complete 50,000 by the end of 2013. The study is using metagenomics to explore how microbial communities are structured along environmental parameter gradients. check details The EMP is an ideal example of a pilot study that became a standard way of analyzing and working with communities. It has spawned a number of other initiatives (including the Brazilian Microbiome Project—http://www.brazilianmicrobiome.org) and the model is now being emulated by other studies. Three key things to make sure of are that samples are prepared in the same way, sequenced in the same way and analyzed

in the same way to enable p38 MAPK inhibitor comparison. To overcome major issues it is often necessary to include standard samples in processing pipelines at multiple sites, so that irregularities that may occur due to site specific bias can be dealt with. Ocean Sampling Day (OSD; http://www.oceansamplingday.org, http://oceansamplingday.blogspot.se/) is an initiative to undertake, through global collaborations, the simultaneous sampling Histamine H2 receptor of the microbial communities in the world’s oceans. OSD is part of the 9 million Euro Ocean of Tomorrow grant Micro B3 – Marine Microbial Biodiversity, Bioinformatics and Biotechnology. Coordinated by

Jacobs University Bremen, Germany, and consisting of 32 European partners, Micro B3 (January 2012 – December 2015) is designed for bioinformatic capacity building in Europe. Ocean Sampling Day takes place on the June and December solstices each year with pilot events happening in 2012 and 2013 and ramping up to a full scale sampling campaign on June 21st 2014. The solstices were selected because six-years of metagenomic studies at the ‘L4’ site in the Western Channel Observatory (UK) have shown that there is a predictable ‘dip’ in microbial diversity on the summer solstice, while the ‘peak’ of microbial diversity occurs on the December solstice at L4, with the variability largely explained by differences in day length between seasons (8 h at this latitude). DNA-sequencing of the microbial communities as part of Micro B3’s OSD will provide insights into the fundamental rules describing microbial diversity and function and will contribute to the blue economy through the identification of novel, ocean-derived biotechnologies.