QIIME 2 2018.11 release is now live!

The QIIME 2 2018.11 release is now live! There are lots of exciting new changes packed into this release that are described below.

Our next planned QIIME 2 release is scheduled for late January 2019 (QIIME 2 2019.1), but please stay tuned. As well, we plan on transitioning to quarterly releases in 2019. Right now, those proposed releases look like:

• QIIME 2 2019.1
• QIIME 2 2019.4
• QIIME 2 2019.7
• QIIME 2 2019.10

Check out the QIIME 2 2018.11 docs for details on installing the latest QIIME 2 release, as well as tutorials and other resources. Get in touch on the QIIME 2 forum 2 if you run into any issues!

Virtual machine builds will be available sometime next week.

Here’s the highlights of the release:

• QIIME 2 Framework
  • A pre-print announcing :qiime2: has been published! If you use :qiime2: in your research, please cite this pre-print until a peer-reviewed article is accepted for publication (the provenance citation for the framework has been updated, so if you use this version of QIIME 2 you will automatically have the preprint citation embedded in provenance!). Stay tuned for more details!
  • Artifacts now have checksums stored in the archive — this will help preserve data integrity of QIIME 2 artifacts from now 'til the end of days. For example, here is what happens when someone tampers with a Visualization (in this example, foo.qzv):
    
  • Type-mismatch errors have been improved by @ChrisKeefe:
    
• QIIME 2 Library
  • An all new site for sharing and learning about QIIME 2 Plugins. We have many exciting plans for this site, so please stay tuned. In the meantime, check out the announcement for more details.
  • Several new plugins have been developed in the last few months. Rather than announce them here, we encourage you to check out the Library to learn all about them!
• q2cwl
  • An all-new prototype interface for automatically generating CWL tools from QIIME 2 actions. This interface is not currently distributed as part of the "Core Distribution" for now, but please check out the README for more info!
• docs
  • New overview tutorial for advanced users! and the emoji-allergic. By @cduvallet and @Mehrbod_Estaki !
  • The importing tutorial has been given a new lease on life! Thank you @cduvallet for reorganizing, improving, and updating this tutorial!
  • More details on first-differences and first-distances have been added to the q2-longitudinal tutorial.
• dev-docs
  • Newly released developer documentation is available at https://dev.qiime2.org. We still have a lot of work to do on API docs, but this is a good first step!
• q2cli
  • qiime tools validate can now validate QZV files! Hurrah!
• q2-feature-table
  • @ChrisKeefe - Added sequence lengths and descriptive stats including a seven-number summary to feature-table tabulate-seqs
  • The latest version of biom is now used (2.1.7).
  • @sdbrown added subsampling with replacement capability to feature-table rarefy.
• q2-phylogeny
  • IQ-TREE associated enhancements. By @SoilRotifer! :
    • --p-fast: This resembles the fast search of FastTree. Available only in iqtree.
    • Added access to single branch test methods: SH-aLRT via --p-alrt, aBayes via --p-abayes, and local bootstrap test via --p-lbp. These methods can be used as an alternative or in conjunction with bootstrapping approaches. Available in both iqtree and iqtree-ulfrafast-bootstrap, and all can be used simultaneously.
    • --p-n-runs: This allows multiple independent phylogenetic inferences to take place. The single best tree from these runs will be retained. Available in both iqtree and iqtree-ulfrafast-bootstrap.
    • --p-bnni: This option reduces the risk of overestimating branch supports via ultrafast bootstrap due to severe model violations. Available only through iqtree-ultrafast-bootstrap.
• q2-feature-classifier
  • extract-reads: Added min_length and max_length parameters to support filtering simulated amplicons based on size.
  • classify-consensus-vsearch can now allow maxaccepts=0 as a parameter setting; this will cause VSEARCH to accept all database hits for performing consensus taxonomy assignment.
  • The classify-consensus-vsearch and classify-consensus-blast method and parameter descriptions have been updated to clarify how these operate, especially regarding the misleading behavior of BLASTn max_target_seqs (maxaccepts).
• q2-sample-classifier
  • split-table: fixed a bug to support unstratified feature table splitting.
  • metatable: added a new method for converting a metadata file into a feature table, and optionally merging it with an existing feature table.
  • q2-sample-classifier is now published! read all about it.
• q2-longitudinal
  • linear-mixed-effects can now accept R-style formulae for specifying fixed effects/interactions. This action can still accept fixed effects as a comma-separated list for the formula-adverse.
  • pairwise-distances: fixed a bug whereby metadata categories present in the metric sample metadata column but not represented by the samples in the distance matrix would be displayed as an empty column in the output boxplots.
• q2-emperor
  • Adds an option to ignore missing samples (--p-ignore-missing-samples) when samples are not included in the metadata file but are present in the coordinates file. Thanks to @mortonjt.
  • Fixes a bug where the Red-Yellow-Blue colormap showed as a grayscale.
  • Fixes a compatibility problem with newer versions of the Jupyter notebook environment.
• q2-diversity
  • beta-phylogenetic-alt has been removed and is superseded by beta-phylogenetic, which now uses striped UniFrac (this is a faster implementation of vanilla UniFrac).
  • Canberra-Adkins has joined the family of available beta diversity metrics. This is a normalized variant of the Canberra metric.
• q2-fragment-insertion
  • This plugin is now a part of the core :qiime2: distribution!
  • Check out this tutorial for examples on how to use this plugin!
• q2-gneiss
  • ilr-phylogenetic can once again accept FeatureTable[Composition] artifacts.
• q2-types
  • Manifest format validation has been updated and improved!
    • Validation now provides detailed error messages about what went wrong and why when QIIME 2 runs into problems importing.
    • Whitespace is now stripped from fields, which has caused many problems in the past for users trying to get their data loaded up.
    • This format now verifies that the files referenced actually exist at the locations indicated in the manifest, prior to importing --- reducing the number of painful import errors!
• q2-demux
  • subsample-single and subsample-paired methods have been added to this plugin (thanks @gregcaporaso!), which allow for subsampling SampleData[SequencesWithQuality] and SampleData[PairedEndSequencesWithQuality] into smaller datasets --- useful for preparing tutorial data, or for asking for help here on the Forum.

Happy QIIME-ing!