4. Why study rare microbial taxa?
Estimate the total number of taxa in samples
Answer whether “everything is everywhere.”
Test ecological mechanisms for subsistence
Identify genes with novel applications
Reveal phylogenetic novelty,
undetected due to previous
methodological limitations
Carlos Pedrós-Alió (2012) Josh Neufeld
5. Hypothesis
Rare 16S rRNA gene
sequences are
phylogenetically
novel and represent
persistent low abundance
populations.