Earth Microbiome Project and Global Systems Biology

Here, we published the first large-scale analysis of data from the Earth Microbiome Project (EMP) (1, 2), a truly multidisciplinary research program involving more than 500 scientists and 27,751 samples acquired from 43 countries. These samples represent myriad specimen types and span a wide range of biotic and abiotic factors, geographic locations, and physicochemical properties. The database (https://qiita.ucsd.edu/emp/) is still growing, with more than 100,000 amplicon data sets and more than 500 paired metagenomic and metabolomic data sets. Importantly, the techniques, data, and analytical tools are all standardized and publicly accessible, providing a framework to support research at a scale of integration that just 7 years ago seemed impossible.