Crosspost from microBEnet: Where is metagenomic analysis heading? Hopefully in directions suggested in this paper.

Figure 3 from Raes et al. Molecular Systems Biology 7 #473  doi:10.1038/msb.2011.6 

Just a quick post here.  I have been reading this paper: Toward molecular trait-based ecology through integration of biogeochemical, geographical and metagenomic data by Jeroen Raes et al. in Molecular Systems Biology.  This integration they try to pull off in the paper is to me where we need to move as a field (i.e., microbial ecology) in order to make full use of metagenomic data.  The paper provides a nice overview of microbial biogeography too.  Definitely worth a read.

Am crossposting this from the microBEnet blog (microBEnet is the site for the microbiology of the built environment network that I am building):