Researchers working on environmentally relevant organisms, populations, and communities
are increasingly turning to the application of OMICS technologies to answer fundamental
questions about the natural world, how it changes over time, and how it is influenced by anthropogenic
factors. In doing so, the need to capture meta-data that accurately describes the
biological "source" material used in such experiments is growing in importance. Here, we
provide an overview of the formation of the "Env" community of environmental OMICS researchers
and its efforts at considering the meta-data capture needs of those working in environmental
OMICS. Specifically, we discuss the development to date of the Env specification,
an informal specification including descriptors related to geographic location,
environment, organism relationship, and phenotype. We then describe its application to the
description of environmental transcriptomic experiments and how we have used it to extend
the Minimum Information About a Microarray Experiment (MIAME) data standard to create
a domain-specific extension that we have termed MIAME/Env. Finally, we make an open
call to the community for participation in the Env Community and its future activities.
This paper is part of the special issue of OMICS on data standards.
