The Special Issue brought together papers that highlighted the power of
high-throughput sequencing (HTS) data to address classic questions in
ecology and evolution, and/or use models/theory to infer key ecological
and evolutionary processes, and make predictions, particularly focused
on metabarcoding (amplicon) datasets in conjunction with complementary
-omics data types. We highlight key papers that show the power of the
new technology to address questions related to: (1) community assembly,
and the interplay between competition, environmental filtering, and
neutral processes, that can be inferred from the data, and how these
change according to environmental conditions, and across successional
and extended evolutionary time. (2) Interaction networks, and how these
can show predictable changes over similar spatial and temporal
gradients, providing insights into questions of biotic resilience.
Studies also examined (3) cross scale interactions and those involving
hosts and their microbiomes, with the critical development being the
ease of comparison and integration across scales of organismic
complexity, allowing insights at one scale to inform the other. The
approach is also amenable to (4) studies of invasive species and biotic
homogenization, providing insights of shifts in alpha and beta diversity
across a wide range of spatial scales.