Milestone - Integration of Linked Data component for microbiome-climate semantic framework (4.3)

[ssarrafan]

Catalog of climate-microbiome relationships
We will build a Linked Data component within the NMDC Data Portal for exploration of mechanistic microbiome processes underlying environmental processes, including processes linked to climate change (Data Portal, Milestone 4.3). This new component of the Data Portal will allow researchers to explore NMDC data and knowledge through an ontology of climate-related processes, with terms such as ‘climate change’, ‘permafrost thaw’, and ‘increased nitrification’. Working with relevant partners and stakeholders, we will create a hierarchy of these terms with an emphasis on processes that can be linked to microbiomes, where either microbial communities contribute to the process or are affected by it. For example, there is ample knowledge on known microbially-driven aspects of the carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycles, and those can be associated with relevant terms in EnvO . Next, we will link terms in the environmental process index to existing terms used in the NMDC to annotate samples or data, including environment terms used to describe samples, and pathways and chemicals derived from functional annotation and metabolomics (Milestone 2.10). We will also link these terms to geolocations of samples, thereby providing an exploration layer on top of data hosted in the Data Portal (Data Portal, Milestone 4.4). This allows users to explore an environmental process of interest associated with microbes or functions, and to retrieve relevant studies, samples, and data sets. Throughout this development process, we will engage heavily with the research community and leverage user research to ensure our development is meeting the needs of the environment research community (Milestone 2.11).

[ssarrafan]

@emileyfadrosh I assigned to Chris. Is that correct?

FYI @sierra-moxon