The Earth Microbiome Project analyzes microbial communities across the globe. We propose to characterize Earth by environmental parameter space into different biomes and then explore these using samples. We will analyze 200k samples to produce a global Gene Atlas describing protein space, environmental metabolic models for each biome, 500k reconstructed microbial genomes, a global metabolic model, and a data-analysis portal for visualization of all information.

For example, we may have soil samples from a pH range of 4-6.5 and 7.3-11.2 at a range of different temperatures, nutrient loads, and soil types. To understand the full range of soil microbiota on earth we would need to explore samples whose pH is below 4, above 11.2 and between 6.5 and 7.3, and all at a range of different temperatures, nutrient loads and soil types.

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