SynthesisNature2017
A communal catalogue reveals Earth's multiscale microbial diversity.
Synthesis in Nature, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1,259 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1,259 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 2,810 citations in OpenAlex.
- Standardized 16S Meta-Analysis Reveals Consistent Host-Associated Patterns in Laminariales Epiphytic Microbiomes.MicrobiologyOpen · 2026Pooled it
- Bacteriophage-mediated gut microbiota regulation: a bibliometric landscape analysis (2005-2024).Frontiers in microbiology · 2026Pooled it
- Meta-analysis-derived estimates of stressor-response associations for riverine organism groups.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Pooled it
- Trial
- Trial
- Distinct trajectories of urbanization shape the human gut microbiome across South Asia.Gut microbes · 2026Article
- Coordination of quorum sensing with T3SS and T6SS: Bacterial strategies for combating fungal pathogens.Virulence · 2026Review
- Niche-specific immune and microbial signatures across the healthy upper respiratory tract mucosa.iScience · 2026Article
- DNA-based monitoring uncovers contrasting salinity-driven diversity patterns of bacterial and protist plankton in the Baltic Sea area.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Functional capacities drive recruitment of bacteria into plant root microbiota.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Ambient temperature is encoded in the metagenome of microbial communities.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Integrating multi-omics technologies to decipher microbiome functions.Nature communications · 2026Review
- The Biotechnological Applications of Marine Bacteria.Biology · 2026Review
- metaWEPP: leveraging biobank-scale intra-species phylogenies for near-haplotype resolution in metagenomic analysis.NAR genomics and bioinformatics · 2026Article
- SuSha: A multi-model ensemble learning framework for predicting microbial salinity adaptation.Engineering microbiology · 2026Article
- Megascale microbiome analysis with DartUniFrac.Nature biotechnology · 2026Article
- Microbiome Science Certificate Program for workforce development and multi-omics expertise.Journal of microbiology & biology education · 2026Article
- Rainfall Shapes the Diversity of Soil Nitrogen-Fixing Microorganisms Worldwide.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Global microbial DNA signatures of temperature and nutrient limitation across ecosystems.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Amplicon sequencing data set of bacterial and phytoplankton communities during a record low-ice winter in the North American Great Lakes.Microbiology resource announcements · 2026Article
1,199 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
43 authors at 20 institutions in 30 countries.
Funding
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.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.