25 years of serving the community with ribosomal RNA gene reference databases and tools

SILVA (lat. forest) is a comprehensive web resource, providing services around up to date, high-quality datasets of aligned ribosomal RNA gene (rDNA) sequences from the Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukaryota domains. SILVA dates back to the year 1991 when Dr. Wolfgang Ludwig from the Technical University Munich started the integrated software workbench ARB (lat. tree) to support high-quality phylogenetic inference and taxonomy based on the SSU and LSU rDNA marker genes. At that time, the ARB project maintained both, the sequence reference datasets and the software package for data analysis. In 2005, with the massive increase of DNA sequence data, the maintenance of the software system ARB and the corresponding rRNA…

• GA
  Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
• BM
  Blanche Moore Foundation
• DF
  Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft

  Award: GL 553/5-1
• BF
  Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung

  Award: 031A539A
• M
  Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
• GN
  German Network for Bioinformatics Infrastructure