Future Outlook
The collection of papers in this Special Issue highlights the critical insights that can be gained using high-throughput approaches, in particular in relation to biodiversity dynamics. We now have a tool for understanding how overall species composition changes across (1) spatial gradients, whether habitat, elevation, precipitation, nutrient, or anthropogenically-associated modifications. Moreover, we can also examine changes through (2) time, whether using museum specimens, ancients sediments, or sub-fossils to show how diet, host-associations, parasitism, and other interactions have changed; and geological or ecological chronosequences that provide insights into how entire communities change over extended time periods. The set of papers includes a mixture of studies, with about half focusing on macro-organisms, the other half on microorganisms. The critical point here is that we have a tool that allows comparison of processes across scales. Thus, concepts developed for understanding biodiversity in macro-organisms can be tested in real time using microorganisms, and dynamics that have been learned from microbial systems can provide insights into factors shaping communities of macro-organisms and their interaction with entire ecosystems. As the approaches become more robust, it will be easier to realize the potential of high-throughput analyses to answer some of the most intractable questions in biodiversity science.