AlRub' AlGhali: a study of the Empty Quarter in Saudi Arabia
The aims of the study are to characterize the structure and function of the microbiome of the Empty Quarter by collecting environmental samples at multiple time points. Collected samples include soil, plant, water, and biofilm. Extensive metadata characterizing the environmental conditions is also collected. Amplicon and shotgun sequencing approaches will be used to determine the microbial composition of the samples on a molecular level, and Artificial Intelligence and bioinformatics methods will be used to reveal the functions and interactions in the collected samples and relate them to environmental conditions.