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Microbes hold the key to life. They hold the secrets to our past (as the descendants of the earliest forms of life) and the prospects for our future (as we mine their genes for solutions to some of the planet's most pressing problems, from global warming to antibiotic resistance). However, the piecemeal approach that has defined efforts to study microbial genetic diversity for over 20 years and in over 30,000 genome projects risks squandering that promise. These efforts have covered less than 20% of the diversity of the cultured archaeal and bacterial species, which represent just 15% of the overall known prokaryotic diversity. Here we call for the funding of a systematic effort to produce a comprehensive genomic catalog of all cultured Bacteria and Archaea by sequencing, where available, the type strain of each species with a validly published name (currently∼11,000). This effort will provide an unprecedented level of coverage of our planet's genetic diversity, allow for the large-scale discovery of novel genes and functions, and lead to an improved understanding of microbial evolution and function in the environment.

The article discusses how far it is important to share microbiological information with researchers and public. There is a growing need to address data access regarding biological explorations. The sharing of data of microbiology is necessary to convert research results into knowledge, products and procedures to improve matters of general interest. All the scientists, research institutions, international agencies ensure that all he aspects of the data including financial, economic, legal, behavioral aspects of data sharing are considered collectively.

Within the field of the governance of biodiversity, initiatives for sharing knowledge through networking distributed databases have emerged, operating both on a global scale (such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility connecting worldwide biodiversity resources in a searchable database portal) and in more focused issue networks (such as the European Human Frozen Tumour Tissue Bank). In this article, I analyse the institutional conditions for the development of these initiatives in the particular case of microbiological resources. Two main results come out of this analysis. First, microbiological information has to be considered as a complex good, having both public good and common pool resources aspects. Second, to solve the incentive problems for this complex good, we have to go beyond a static conception of efficiency (favouring economic incentives through the allocation of intellectual property rights) and adopt a dynamic framework (geared towards the enforcement of norms of cooperation in a context of changing social preferences and processes of knowledge acquisition throughout the entire innovation chain). Building on the methodologies of successful research programmes on dynamic efficiency in other fields of new institutional economics, I discuss a framework for defining a robust set of design rules for the governance of the microbiological commons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The task of a comprehensive exploration of micro-organisms in medicine, agriculture, industry, basic, applied and environmental sciences requires many resources and highly specialised methods of collection. The resulting wealth of data makes it essential for experts from different fields to collaborate closely for efficiently translating it into social benefits. Resulting commercial applications are one driving force in further developments that might generate conflicts between intellectual property rights and the need of accessible, shared databases. Culture collections for micro-organisms might act as mediators by defining the regulations for access to data and materials. In this article we address problems and potentials of sharing information as part of organising broad access to diverse forms of information on microbial commons. Our main argument is that a focus on genetic information only, by neglecting the importance of combining and sharing facts coming from the behaviour and the environment of living organisms, results in loss of expertise, knowledge, and social opportunities both for developed and developing countries, the latter being the reservoir of most of the remaining biodiversity on Earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]