Curated Microbial Genome Reference Database for Soil and Plant Microbiome Analysis

Abstract

This registry only contains a readme file and the link to a database hosted at CORA.RDR. The database is a curated microbial genome reference database designed to improve the detection and taxonomic annotation of fungal sequences in soil and plant-associated microbiome datasets. Besides soil- and plant-relevant prokaryotes, it brings together fungal genome resources from three public reference sources: NCBI RefSeq, FungiDB and EnsemblFungi. The source databases were combined, harmonised, curated and deduplicated to generate an improved fungal reference resource with broader fungal genome representation than standard reference databases alone. The database is intended for use in bioinformatic workflows analysing metagenomic and microbiome sequencing data, especially where accurate fungal profiling is important. Its purpose is to reduce under-detection of fungi caused by incomplete or biased reference databases and to support more informative downstream analyses of fungal diversity, relative abundance and potential ecological relevance. The database is particularly relevant for soil microbiome analysis, plant-associated microbiome analysis, biological soil diagnostics and microbiome-informed agricultural research.