Figure 1

Progression of the number of sequenced microbial genomes since the completion of the genome of Haemophilus influenzae in 1995. The graph shows the number of microbial genomes that have been sequenced each year in various categories. The lower section of the figure highlights the acceleration in metagenomic projects, where all the microbial species in an environment can be sequenced without initial culturing; solid lines represent completed and published projects while the dashed line represents projects in progress.