ABSTRACT
Best practices from open data science are spreading across research fields, providing new opportunities for research andeducation. Open data science emphasizes the view that digitalization is enabling new forms of resource sharing, collaboration and outreach. This has the potential to improve the overall transparency and efficiency of research. Microbiomebioinformatics is a rapidly developing area that can greatly benefit from this progress. The concept of microbiome datascience refers to the application of best practices from open data science to microbiome bioinformatics. The increasingavailability of open data and new opportunities to collaborate online are greatly facilitating the development of this field. Amicrobiome data science ecosystem combines experimental research data with open data processing and analysis andreproducible tutorials that can also serve as an educational resource. Here, we provide an overview of the current status ofmicrobiome data science from a community developer perspective and propose directions for future development of thefield.