Planet in Peril: Unveiling the Microbial Consequences of Environmental Degradation on Human Health Through Omics Approaches

Technological advancements in high-throughput sequencing, reducing sequencing errors, and computationally intensive downstream analyses becoming more efficient have had considerable effects on our ability to rapidly explore complex microbial communities in ecosystems across the world. These microbes drive the regulatory processes in ecosystems and thus are crucial for their health and maintenance. Meta-omics technologies have provided researchers with the potential to correlate functions to specific microbial species with high confidence. Additionally, surveys into metabolite profiling and gene expression in microbial communities further provide an opportunity to understand the complex metabolic pathways and networks that govern an ecosystem. However, the speed at which meta-omics-based developments are happening can be unnerving to first-time users. Here, we provide an overview of various meta-omics employed in microbial ecology and microbiome studies concerning environments that directly affect human health and how meta-omics methods provide insights into research questions and assist in policymaking decisions in the fight against climate change and toward a sustainable future.