Soil microbiologists make their discovery in the dirt and rarely look at the stars. The words of Leonardo da Vinci ‘We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot’ are as applicable now as they were in 1510 and, currently, scientists deciphering soil microbe genomes and exploring the metagenomes of soil ecosystems may learn from their sky-gazing colleagues. Keeping their feet in the mud, but having their head in the sky, may help them to avoid the (meta)genome-analysis gridlock. Metagenomics involves sampling and sequencing the genome sequences of a community of organisms that inhabit a common environment, such as the ocean, the soil or the human gut (Handelsman, 2004; Hugenholtz & Tyson, 2008). Metagenomics provides an unbiased picture of the community structure (species richness and distribution) and its functional potential.