Patterns in microbial biodiversity (Extended)

Microorganisms represent the vast majority of Earth's biodiversity and they play a crucial role in nearly every process of environmental importance. However we know very little about how microbial diversity is generated and maintained. Our ignorance is due in part to the isolation of microbial diversity studies from the general study of biodiversity. The proposed working group will bring together microbial biologists who are gathering microbial diversity data and ecologists who study biodiversity, to share tools and approaches, to look for patterns in microbial diversity data, and to propose future directions for microbial biodiversity research.