Summary: | The holy grail of microbial ecology would be to know what species are present and active in a community, what functions they are performing, and at what point in time. In recent years it has become clear that environmental meta-omic approaches are essential to gain insight into microbial communities; however the importance of cultivation cannot be overlooked. High quality reference genomes are necessary for the interpretation of meta-omic data, and these can only come from pure cultures. In order to contribute to the ever-growing body of work investigating microbial ecology, and to assess current methods commonly used, we studied the composition of a microbial community within lake sediment in the High Arctic (Thule, Greenland) using a multi-faceted approach. My specific aims were to:
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