Workshop: Deciphering the Microbiome: Exploiting theory, cross-system analyses, and innovative analytics to propel advances in microbiome science; Dec. 8-10, 2019; Alexandria, VA

地球上的每个栖息地都有自己的微生物群，包括细菌、病毒、真菌和原生生物。认识到人类、植物、动物、土壤和水中微生物群落的多样性和复杂性，从根本上改变了我们对大小生物之间关系的看法，也改变了我们对疾病、健康和免疫的基本理解。总的来说，人们普遍认识到微生物组在生物体和生态系统健康和功能中发挥的重要作用，并有充分的动机利用这一潜力。在过去十年中，对微生物组研究的私人投资急剧增加，数百家公司专注于人类和动物医学以及农业中微生物组的潜在操纵或管理。尽管研究足迹不断扩大，但在讨论关键资源需求时，很少有深思熟虑的努力让微生物组科学领域的研究人员参与进来。概念性、技术性还是分析性？支持跨领域的进步。该项目将支持一个由60多名科学家亲自参加的研讨会，以及另外100多名虚拟科学家，包括从事植物、动物、环境和人类微生物组研究的研究人员。参与者将使用生态学和进化生物学作为一个整合框架，因为它们为整合的跨学科讨论提供了强大的背景。小组和互动会议将激励研究人员确定微生物组科学的关键资源和知识差距，可以推进假设检验的概念和理论基础，推动微生物组应用进步的大思路，以及合作研究和综合分析的前进道路。技术段落：在过去十年中，重大的技术创新推动了微生物组数据量的指数级增长。然而，促进我们对微生物群的集体理解的概念、理论和实践基础设施的发展滞后。微生物组研究缺乏对生态和进化假设检验的明确概念框架的依赖，并且很少有尝试开发微生物组群落动态或组装的可推广模型。此外，跨系统（动物、人类、植物、环境）的研究工作的碎片化，甚至在使用不同方法研究同一系统的研究人员之间，限制了确定微生物组结构或组织的共同原则的机会。本次研讨会将针对以下4个目标解决这些差距：探索微生物组科学的交叉主题和关键挑战；2. 促进微生物组研究中严格的生态基础和假设检验的发展；3. 激发对微生物组组装和功能的可推广概念、原则和语言的研究；4. 确定关键的跨社区知识和资源差距以及推进该领域的机会。研讨会将为跨学科的科学互动提供重要的机会，以推进微生物组研究界。早期职业博士后科学家将被征召担任虚拟讨论的主持人，为发展远程通信技能提供机会，以支持科学会议和教育的新模式。总的来说，本次研讨会将确定跨学科微生物组的资源和理解方面的关键差距，并促进社区范围内的合作努力，以解决这些关键的资源和知识差距。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Non-technical paragraph: Every habitat on earth host its own microbiome, which can include bacteria, viruses, fungi, and protists. Recognition of the diversity and complexity of microbial communities that colonize humans, plants, animals, soil, and water has changed in fundamental ways how we think about the relationships between big and small organisms, as well as our basic understanding of disease, health, and immunity. Collectively, there is widespread recognition of the significant roles that microbiomes play in organismal and ecosystem health and functioning, and significant incentives to harness this potential. Private investments in microbiome research have expanded dramatically over the past decade, with hundreds of companies focusing on the potential manipulation or management of microbiomes in human and animal medicine and in agriculture. Despite the expanding research footprint, there have been remarkably few deliberate efforts to engage researchers across the breadth of microbiome science in discussions of key resource needs?conceptual, technical, or analytical?to support cross-cutting advances. The project will support a workshop bringing together 60+ scientists in person, plus another 100+ scientists virtually, including researchers working on plant, animal, environmental, and human microbiomes. Participants will use ecology and evolutionary biology as an integrating framework, as they provide a powerful context for integrative, cross-discipline discussion. Small-group and interactive sessions will stimulate researchers to identify key resource and knowledge gaps across microbiome science, conceptual and theoretical foundations that can advance hypothesis testing, big ideas to drive advances in microbiome applications, and a path forward for collaborative research and synthetic analyses. Technical paragraph: Significant technical innovations have propelled exponential increases in the volume of microbiome data generated over the past decade. Yet development of conceptual, theoretical, and practical infrastructure to advance our collective understanding of microbiomes lags behind. Microbiome research suffers from a lack of reliance on explicit conceptual frameworks for ecological and evolutionary hypothesis testing, and there have been few attempts to develop generalizable models for microbiome community dynamics or assembly. Moreover, fragmentation of research efforts across systems (animal, human, plant, environmental), and even among researchers using different approaches to study the same system, has restricted opportunities to identify common principles of microbiome structure or organization. This workshop will address these gaps, targeting 4 objectives: 1. Explore cross-cutting themes and key challenges in microbiome science; 2. Facilitate advances in the development of rigorous ecological foundations and hypothesis-testing within microbiome research; 3. Stimulate the search for generalizable concepts, principles, and language for microbiome assembly and functions; 4. Identify key cross-community knowledge and resource gaps and opportunities for advancing the field. The workshop will provide significant opportunities for cross-disciplinary scientific interactions to advance the microbiome research community. Early-career post-doctoral scientists will be enlisted to serve as virtual discussion leads, providing an opportunity to develop skills in distance communication to support new models for scientific meetings and education. Collectively, this workshop will identify critical gaps in resources and understanding of microbiomes across disciplines, and stimulate community-wide, collaborative efforts to address these key resource and knowledge gaps.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.