Applying GeoChip Analysis to Disparate Microbial Communities: These high-throughput gene arrays, used to analyze microbial communities, link their structures to how they affect ecosystems

M icroorganisms, the most diverse group of life, play integral roles in ecosystem functions and biogeochemical cycling of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, and various metals. Microorganisms typically form complex communities whose structure, functions, interactions, and dynamics are critical to our lives. For instance, dramatic changes involving microbial communities from epidemics, plant or animal disease outbreaks, biological terrorist attacks, or atmospheric alterations from global climate change could prove a disaster for the environment and us. Although it is critical to understand which microorganisms are present and what they are doing, counting them is difficult, making it a major challenge to address such issues in quantitative ways and, thus, to make accurate predictions. However, the recent development of large-scale, high-throughput metagenomics technologies along with GeoChip functional gene arrays are making it possible to obtain community-wide spatial and temporal information on microbial communities. With the advent of these new tools, microbial ecologists will no longer be frustrated by the shortage of data to address ecological questions. Large-scale metagenomic sequencing and high-throughput functional gene array technologies instead enable scientists to address research questions that formerly they could not. These new technologies are significantly reshaping the field of microbial ecology. Why GeoChip?