Noah Fierer

TL;DR: This work sequences a diverse array of 25 environmental samples and three known “mock communities” at a depth averaging 3.1 million reads per sample to demonstrate excellent consistency in taxonomic recovery and recapture diversity patterns that were previously reported on the basis of metaanalysis of many studies from the literature.

TL;DR: It is shown that the protocol developed for these instruments successfully recaptures known biological results, and additionally that biological conclusions are consistent across sequencing platforms (the HiSeq2000 versus the MiSeq) and across the sequenced regions of amplicons.

TL;DR: Bacterial diversity was highest in neutral soils and lower in acidic soils, with soils from the Peruvian Amazon the most acidic and least diverse in this study.

TL;DR: Survey, experimental, and meta-analytical results suggest that certain bacterial phyla can be differentiated into copiotrophic and oligotrophic categories that correspond to the r- and K-selected categories used to describe the ecological attributes of plants and animals.