The Dirt on Metagenomic Approaches for Tackling Our Soils.

Metagenomics has created many opportunities to study microbial communities in the environments.  Its application to soil microbial communities has been challenging, and we address the obstacles associated with soil metagenomics.  Specifically, we highlight soil assembly approaches for diverse prairie communities, the availability of reference genomes, and identifying microbial interactions in soil metagenomes.  Finally, we discuss lessons learned and insights we have gained from our soil metagenomic projects, ranging from wood rot communities to soil aggregates.