The voting results are in, and we have a surprising winner. Not a paper I would have predicted to win, but one that definitely had a huge fan base. Thank you all for voting, and all the best wishes for 2017. Happy New Year!

The winner of the “Best Microbiome Paper of 2016” is……

• Dietary Shifts May Trigger Dysbiosis and Mucous Stools in Giant Pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) – Candace L. Williams – Frontiers in Microbiology

Second place:

• Population-based metagenomics analysis reveals markers for gut microbiome composition and diversity – Alexandra Zhernakova – Science

Shared third/fourth place:

• Phylosymbiosis: Relationships and Functional Effects of Microbial Communities across Host Evolutionary History – Andrew W. Brooks – PLOS Biology
• Diet-induced extinctions in the gut microbiota compound over generations – Erica Sonnenburg – Nature

Fifth place:

• A Dietary Fiber-Deprived Gut Microbiota Degrades the Colonic Mucus Barrier and Enhances Pathogen Susceptibility – Mahesh S. Desai – Cell

Shared 6th-10th place:

• A purified membrane protein from Akkermansia muciniphila or the pasteurized bacterium improves metabolism in obese and diabetic mice – Hubert Plovier – Nature Medicine
• The effect of host genetics on the gut microbiome – Marc Jan Bonder – Nature Genetics
• The Microbiome of Aseptically Collected Human Breast Tissue in Benign and Malignant Disease -Tina J. Hieken – Scientific Reports
• Reduced diversity and altered composition of the gut microbiome in individuals with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome -Ludovic Giloteaux – Microbiome
• Microbiota Diurnal Rhythmicity Programs Host Transcriptome Oscillations – Christoph A. Thaiss – Cell