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Nature Biotechnology 26, 997–998 (1 September 2008) | doi:10.1038/nbt0908-997

Dissecting microbial employment

Elizabeth A Dinsdale & Forest Rohwer

Microbial communities drive the Earth's biogeochemical pathways. Although broad functional characteristics of these diverse and genomically flexible communities can be identified by metagenomics, it is difficult to pinpoint which species are involved in particular metabolic processes.