(Phys.org) —Despite advances made in the fields of DNA sequencing and analysis, researchers have barely begun to scratch the tip of the iceberg in cataloging the planet's microbial diversity, mainly because only a minute fraction of the millions of species of microbes have been cultured in the laboratory. In marine as well as terrestrial environments, the microbes that can be cultured in the lab do not accurately represent the diversity found in the wild, severely limiting our understanding of why microbes are found where they are and what they are doing there.
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