Microbiome research is among the most exciting and promising areas of science today due to many technological advances, particular in high throughput DNA and RNA sequencing, that allow us to determine in complex environments which microbes are present and their metabolism. A prominent component of our research is using genomic and computational methods to understand the ecology and evolution of gut and forest soil microbiomes. Our laboratory is set up for standard molecular biology and microbial physiology research and contains specialized equipment for isolating and culturing anaerobic bacteria. A major focus of our current research is understanding the soil community changes that result from long-term soil warming experiments at the Harvard Forest. The research we do has led to the discovery of new bacterial species and metabolic processes that have had far ranging impacts from probiotics to understanding climate change.