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Survey data are still vital to science

Nature volume 469, page 162 (2011)Cite this article

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We have noticed a shift in the way funding agencies and journal editors are viewing observational science. It seems that the value of traditional surveys and exploration is being undermined — particularly in the field of microbial ecology. But without these surveys, scientific advances will stall.

Apart from the Census of Marine Life (http://www.coml.org), it is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain funding for even small-scale surveys of life. This is despite the success of large-scale observational studies such as the Global Ocean Sampling metagenomic study (D. B. Rusch et al. PLoS Biol. 5, e77; 2007), which resulted in more than 100 papers that helped to generate and test hypotheses on marine microbial communities. Later, the TARA Oceans survey (http://oceans.taraexpeditions.org) used a similar experimental approach, incorporating statistical design and contextual metadata.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Argonne National Laboratory, USA

    Jack Gilbert

  2. Dalhousie University, Canada

    Ronald O'Dor

  3. University of Lyons, France

    Timothy Vogel

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  1. Jack Gilbert
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  2. Ronald O'Dor
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  3. Timothy Vogel
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Gilbert, J., O'Dor, R. & Vogel, T. Survey data are still vital to science. Nature 469, 162 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/469162a

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