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The 'rare biosphere': a reality check

Methods for error correction and classification of metagenomic datasets suggest that the rare biosphere is not as large as previously assumed.

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Figure 1: Why a little noise is harmful to diversity estimates.

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Reeder, J., Knight, R. The 'rare biosphere': a reality check. Nat Methods 6, 636–637 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth0909-636

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