BiodiversiTea – die NFDI4Biodiversity Coffee Lecture #14

The online format BiodiversiTea offers a forum for presenting and discussing work, projects, tools and topics from and around the NFDI4Biodiversity community. Once a month, we meet online for an hour - for exciting presentations and lively discussions over a cup of tea (or coffee). The session is open to anyone who would like to find out about and discuss current developments and topics relating to biodiversity data. Membership of NFDI4Biodiversity is not necessary.

Topic in July 2025
MiCoDa and Datathons: Fostering Equitability in Sequence Data Reuse

Speaker
Dr. Stephanie Jurburg (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ )

Abstract
The reuse of microbial metabarcoding data is limited by inconsistent metadata, fragmented archiving practices, and difficulties associated with sequence data processing. To address this, the Microbial Community Database (MiCoDa) and the Datathon project work in concert to foster a culture of open, harmonized, and community-driven data sharing in microbial ecology.

MiCoDa currently houses over 35,000 globally distributed, reprocessed 16S rRNA samples—standardized for comparability and linked to their source publications, and is the largest curated microbiome database in the world. Datathons—launched in 2022—are regional, three-day events that train researchers in standardized metadata practices, support the archiving of amplicon sequencing data, and catalyze collaborative reuse. These events have engaged over 600 researchers across Latin America and Africa, and upcoming editions are planned for China (2025) and the Polar regions (2026).

Together, Datathons and MiCoDa form a pipeline from local data mobilization to global data integration, with a focus on underrepresented regions. This integrated approach enhances the visibility, accessibility, and usability of microbial data, while promoting equitable participation in global microbiome research. Researchers are invited to contribute data, join upcoming Datathons, and explore MiCoDa as a powerful tool for microbial community analyses. The database serves as the long-term home for many of the datasets curated through Datathons. 

This talk will give insights in the MiCoDa database and how the datahthons work as a method for community activation.

Further information

• Jurburg, Stephanie D. et al. (2024) Datathons: fostering equitability in data reuse in ecology. Trends in Microbiology, Volume 32, Issue 5, 415 - 418 https://www.cell.com/trends/microbiology/fulltext/S0966-842X(24)00050-7

Questions & Feedback
The BiodiversiTea lives from your ideas! Would you like to get feedback, are you looking for collaborators, would you like to present the results of your work or would you like to discuss a topic in a larger group? Write to us at helpdesk@nfdi4biodiversity.org or via our helpdesk form and we will organise one of the upcoming lectures together.

If you have any questions, please send a message to our helpdesk.


Missed a session?
You can find recordings of our BiodiversiTeas in our YouTube-Playlist.

Partcipate
Join the session following the registration link:

Das Meeting will be opened shortly before the beginning of the session.