The advent of metagenomic methods to sequence DNA directly from an environment has revolutionized viral ecology, making it possible to “see” natural viral communities that could not be previously studied through culture. This technological leap has enabled further innovation in: extracting and sequencing limited viral DNA from communities, enriching and sequencing wild viruses through single-cell genomics, and creating new bioinformatics methods for large-scale comparative and functional metagenomics. Yet, the knowledge for specialized techniques in viral ecology remains in a subset of labs. We present a viral ecology community forum called VERVENet that strives to increase connectivity and knowledge dissemination in viral ecology research at all levels from undergraduates to accomplished viral ecologists. Our forum leverages and refines existing software from protocols.io to enhance a researcher’s ability to: discuss and share protocols, connect with fellow community members, and learn about new and innovative research in the field. In delivering these valuable tools, VERVENet is a central resource to connect, collaborate, share and innovate for the viral ecology community. Moreover, these tools are broadly useful to any community or individual lab to promote scientific inquiry, reproduction of results, and dissemination and optimization of both molecular and bioinformatics protocols.
33The advent of metagenomic methods to sequence DNA directly from an environment has revolutionized 34 viral ecology, making it possible to "see" natural viral communities that could not be previously studied This need is even more apparent in emerging fields such as aquatic viral ecology where lab, field, and 58 bioinformatics methods are being actively developed in a subset of labs (Weinbauer et al. 2010). Further, 59given the experimental nature of these methods, the virus ecology community has expressed a need for 60 fostering discussions about these protocols towards improved methodologies and to increase connectivity 61 and collaboration among researchers. The challenge is to develop a method-centered collaborative 62 platform that recapitulates the functionality of a scientific meeting -a digital community for connecting 63 with fellow researchers to share and discover the state of the art. 64 65Here, we present the Viral Ecology Research and Virtual Exchange Network (VERVENet), a 66 collaboration between the University of Arizona and protocols.io, to deliver an online forum for the virus 67 ecology community. This forum promotes scientific communication and collaboration to (i) fuel 68 connectivity among viral ecology researchers for sharing data sets, knowledge, job postings, conference 69 announcements through a common online forum called VERVENet, (ii) share protocols and their 70 annotations and optimizations, and (iii) facilitate literature discovery through personalized 71 recommendations to promote discussion on cutting edge viral ecology research. Through interconnecting 72 these valuable resources, we have developed a "go-to" site for viral ecology research (2016k). Moreover, 73 these tools are broadly useful to any community or individual lab for promoting scientific inquiry, 74PeerJ Preprints | https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1901v1 | CC-BY 4.0 Open Access |
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