Credit:
Earth Microbiome Project collaborators collect and analyze samples from diverse environments around the world. Top left: Hiking through the rain forest of Puerto Rico to sample soils with students (credit: Krista McGuire, University of Oregon). Top middle: Colobine monkeys in China, whose fecal microbiomes were sampled for this study (credit: Kefeng Niu). Top right: Bat in Belize, whose fecal microbiome was sampled for this study (credit: Angelique Corthals and Liliana Davalos). Bottom Left: Researcher sampling a stream in the Brooks Mountain Range, Alaska (credit: Byron Crump). Bottom middle: Swabbing bird eggshells from Spain (credit: Juan Peralta-Sanchez). Bottom right: Researcher sampling the southernmost geothermal soils on the planet, at summit of Mt. Erebus, Ross Island, Antarctica (credit: S. Craig Cary, Univ. of Waikato, New Zealand).