Vision and goals

The chemistry of life is still largely unmapped  

Every organism produces, transforms, and responds to a vast diversity of molecules. These metabolites mediate communication, defence, adaptation, and ecological interactions, yet most of this chemical diversity remains undocumented or disconnected from the biological context in which it occurs.

The Earth Metabolome Initiative brings together researchers, collections, laboratories, data specialists, and communities to build a shared view of this hidden dimension of biodiversity.

Our vision  

We envision an open, global resource that connects chemical profiles with organisms, environments, specimens, and the knowledge needed to interpret them. The resource should be useful across metabolomics, ecology, taxonomy, conservation, natural-product discovery, and education.

Our goals  

1. Document chemodiversity at global scale. Develop coordinated approaches for sampling biological and environmental diversity.
2. Connect chemistry to context. Link metabolomics data to trustworthy taxonomic, geographic, ecological, and specimen information.
3. Build open infrastructure. Create reusable standards, software, and data services that support FAIR and reproducible research.
4. Grow a collaborative network. Connect expertise across disciplines, institutions, and regions while lowering barriers to participation.
5. Support discovery and conservation. Make chemical knowledge available for fundamental research and for understanding and protecting biodiversity.

From DBGI to EMI  

The Digital Botanical Gardens Initiative is a pilot of EMI. It develops practical workflows for coordinated sampling, chemical profiling, metadata capture, and open data integration within botanical garden collections. EMI extends this ambition beyond gardens and plants toward wild populations, ecosystems, and the broader diversity of life.