So – am participating in a workshop, supported by CIFAR and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation over the next few days on “Marine Algal and Plant Microbiomes”.  The workshop is basically trying to come up with a white paper / position paper on the future of such studies and to continue the conversation about this topic afterwards.  We are asking questions like

• What are the challenges and opportunities in this area?
•  What are the major scientific questions?
• How are such systems different from fresh water or terrestrial systems?
• How are they different?
• How are marine systems involving other hosts (e.g., coral, sponges, dolphins) comparable (i.e., is there something about marine systems that links them together in any way).
• What tools and resources could help advance work in this area?

And more

So I am posting here asking for a few bits of information from any readers.

• Are you interested in participating in follow up discussions on this topic?
• Do you know of any people we should try to bring into the conversation even if they are not, well, you?
• Are there any major projects in this area that would be worth engaging?

Any thoughts (on the topic that is) would be welcome.