About the Authors

Xiaobing Zhou

Affiliations Arizona State University, School of Life Sciences,Tempe, AZ 85287, United States of America, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Key Laboratory of Biogeography and Bioresource in Arid Land, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, Xinjiang 830011, China

Hilda Smith

Affiliation U. S. Geological Survey, Southwest Biological Science Center, Moab, UT 84532, United States of America

Ana Giraldo Silva

Affiliations Arizona State University, School of Life Sciences,Tempe, AZ 85287, United States of America, Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, United States of America

Jayne Belnap

Affiliation U. S. Geological Survey, Southwest Biological Science Center, Moab, UT 84532, United States of America

Ferran Garcia-Pichel

ferran@asu.edu

Affiliations Arizona State University, School of Life Sciences,Tempe, AZ 85287, United States of America, Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: XBZ FGP. Data curation: XBZ AGS. Formal analysis: XBZ HS. Funding acquisition: FGP. Investigation: XBZ HS AGS. Methodology: XBZ JB FGP. Project administration: XBZ FGP. Resources: FGP JB. Software: XBZ. Supervision: FGP. Validation: XBZ AGS. Writing – original draft: XBZ FGP. Writing – review & editing: AGS JB FGP.