Metagenomics is a new approach being used to sample environmental DNA to better understand populations and communities of organisms, especially bacterial microbiomes. But what is metagenonimcs, how is it different from other genomic analyses, and how is it done? In part one of a two part episode we interview Dr. Andrew Hasley to learn what metagenomics is and the kind of research questions it can investigate. This episode also welcomes co-host Sarah Sanders to the BioTA podcast.