title: The information science of microbial ecology.
abstract: A revolution is unfolding in microbial ecology where petabytes of 'multi-omics' data are produced using next generation sequencing and mass spectrometry platforms. This cornucopia of biological information has enormous potential to reveal the hidden metabolic powers of microbial communities in natural and engineered ecosystems. However, to realize this potential, the development of new technologies and interpretative frameworks grounded in ecological design principles are needed to overcome computational and analytical bottlenecks. Here we explore the relationship between microbial ecology and information science in the era of cloud-based computation. We consider microorganisms as individual information processing units implementing a distributed metabolic algorithm and describe developments in ecoinformatics and ubiquitous computing with the potential to eliminate bottlenecks and empower knowledge creation and translation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology & Immunology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; Koonkie, Inc., Menlo Park, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Aria S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Hahn
authors.affiliation: Koonkie, Inc., Menlo Park, CA, USA; Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Kishori M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Konwar
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Mathematics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
authors.forename: Stilianos
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Louca
authors.affiliation: Graduate Program in Bioinformatics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4.
authors.forename: Niels W
authors.initials: NW
authors.lastname: Hanson
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology & Immunology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada; Koonkie, Inc., Menlo Park, CA, USA; Graduate Program in Bioinformatics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4; ECOSCOPE Training Program, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z3. Electronic address: shallam@mail.ubc.ca.
authors.forename: Steven J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Hallam
mesh_terms: D055669:Ecological and Environmental Phenomena; D017753:Ecosystem; D001330:Electronic Data Processing / Q000379:methods*; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D007254:Information Science / Q000379:methods*; D007255:Information Services; D020407:Internet; D059013:Microbial Consortia / Q000235:genetics*