About the Authors

T. David Matthews

Affiliation Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, 92182, United States of America

Robert Schmieder

Affiliation Department of Computer Science, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, 92182, United States of America

Genivaldo G. Z. Silva

Affiliation Computational Science Research Center, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, 92182, United States of America

Julia Busch

Affiliation Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, 92182, United States of America

Noriko Cassman

Current address: Netherlands Institute for Ecology, Wageningen, The Netherlands

Affiliation Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, 92182, United States of America

Bas E. Dutilh

Affiliations Theoretical Biology and Bioinformatics, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands, Centre for Molecular and Biomolecular Informatics, Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Dawn Green

Current address: Roche Nimblegen, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, United States of America

Brian Matlock

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, United States of America

Brian Heffernan

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, United States of America

Gary J. Olsen

Affiliation Department of Microbiology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois, United States of America

Leigh Farris Hanna

Affiliation Molecular Sciences Department, University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center, 858 Madison Ave, Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America

Dieter M. Schifferli

Affiliation University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, 3800 Spruce St, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 19104, United States of America

Stanley Maloy

Affiliation Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, 92182, United States of America

Elizabeth A. Dinsdale

Affiliation Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, 92182, United States of America

Robert A. Edwards

redwards@mail.sdsu.edu

Affiliations Department of Biology, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, 92182, United States of America, Department of Computer Science, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, 92182, United States of America, Department of Marine Biology, Institute of Biology, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Ave, Argonne, Illinois, 60349, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: RAE DMS SM. Performed the experiments: RAE TDM JB NC DG BM BH LFH. Analyzed the data: BD RS GGZS GJO. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: BD EAD RS. Wrote the paper: TDM EAD SM RAE.