News
RSSMissing collection dates
In the past, we tried to infer collection dates even when the authors did not give them. We have changed this to skip the collection date in this case. At some point in the future, we might also remove inexact or inaccurate collection dates.
03 Apr 2026
Welcome to the Metalog News Section
We have added a news section to the Metalog website to keep you informed about significant changes, new features, and important updates to the database. This will be particularly relevant if you use Metalog for large-scale data analyses, as we may from time to time make bigger changes that could affect any workarounds or data formatting you are doing.
News items will appear here and are also available via RSS feed.
01 Apr 2026
Due to some IT problems, the Bork group homepage and various services such as SPIRE and Metalog are unfortunately going to be unavailable for a couple of days. We're sorry for that and hope that the outage can soon be resolved!
Just published: "Planetary microbiome structure and generalist-driven gene flow across disparate habitats" by @podlesny.bsky.social @chanyeong-kim.bsky.social and @jonas-bio.bsky.social www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
See the quoted post below for a thread on the preprint!
See the quoted post below for a thread on the preprint!
Planetary microbiome structure and generalist-driven gene flow across disparate habitats
A planetary-scale analysis of over 85,000 metagenomes establishes a framework for
exploring the structure and drivers of global microbial habitats, revealing that generalist
species bridge ecological ...
Chan Yeong Kim
Our new preprint is out!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
In this study, we present the largest systematic analysis of microbiome structure and function, integrating 85K uniformly processed metagenomes from diverse habitats worldwide.
@podlesny.bsky.social @jonas-bio.bsky.social @borklab.bsky.social
It has been two weeks since the unexpected death of Peer Bork, and all of us in his research group are deeply missing him. His scientific vision brought us together as a team, and we are immensely grateful for the time we spent together. 🧵
EMBL
EMBL is deeply saddened by the passing of our Interim Director General Peer Bork, a pioneering scientist who left an indelible imprint on life science research in Europe and beyond.
We extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.
www.embl.org/news/people-...
Peer did pioneering work in so many research fields, and we aim that our research on the microbiome within the human gut and across environments will continue in his spirit. We have many ongoing projects, papers under review, and some coming out soon. (2/3)
Thank you to everyone who reached out or shared what he meant to them and how he inspired them! We will keep working together, striving to fulfill Peer's scientific legacy. We hope you'll follow along! (3/3)
Our newest preprint is the work of two talented PhD students: Dominic Eriksson (working in the labs of Meike Vogt, Nicolas Gruber & Shinichi Sunagawa @ethz.ch) and @jonas-bio.bsky.social from our group @embl.org, investigating latitudinal diversity gradients of the ocean microbiome (🧵 linked below)
Jonas Schiller
Latitudinal diversity gradients (LDGs) are found across 🌱🐨🦠 but their underlying mechanisms remain unclear.
In this study, we highlight that LDGs are not universal in marine microbiomes but reflect lineage-specific ecological strategies and environmental responses.
doi.org/10.1101/2025...
New preprint from lab: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... describing the Metalog database of manually annotated contextual data for >110k metagenomics samples around the globe metalog.embl.de
See the thread below from @biocs.bsky.social for more info!
See the thread below from @biocs.bsky.social for more info!
Metalog: curated and harmonised contextual data for global metagenomics samples
Metagenomic sequencing enables the in-depth study of microbes and their functions in humans, animals and the environment. While sequencing data is deposited in public databases, the associated context...
Michael Kuhn
We're very happy to release our new database Metalog metalog.embl.de ! It offers manually curated and harmonised contextual data for 110k metagenomics samples across the globe, incl. precomputed taxonomic profiles, for interactive browsing and for download 🧵 1/7
#microsky