It is almost time for the webinar, which will take place on Tuesday, April 21st, 2026 15:00 CET (this is to allow people from the USA and Alberta to attend without having to wake up before sunrise…). A few things worth knowing:

• you can find FoodMicrobionet and related scripts in my GitHub repository. You may want to check out how to clone a repository, and how to download a folder or a raw file.
• you can find a downloadable version of the ShinyFMBN app on Mendeley data and on GitHub: you are strongly encouraged to download the app because running it locally is much faster
• you can run the app on Shinyapps.io by clicking on this link
• further resources (studies with ASVs) are available on Zenodo
• I will make available more example scripts next week so check the GitHub repository just before the webinar for the most recent version of the scripts

If you are one of the few people left in the world who still reads manuals:

• Table specifications for FoodMicrobionet are here
• Instruction manual for the ShinyFMBN app are here

Please note: I will be accepting people in the webinar (you should be logged in the browser with the address you have used for registering) in the first 15 minutes

The following scientific papers are related to FoodMicrobionet

• Parente, E., Cocolin, L., Filippis, F.D., Zotta, T., Ferrocino, I., O’Sullivan, O., Neviani, E., Angelis, M.D., Cotter, P.D., Ercolini, D., 2016. FoodMicrobionet: A database for the visualisation and exploration of food bacterial communities based on network analysis. International Journal of Food Microbiology 219, 28–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2015.12.001
• Parente, E., Filippis, F.D., Ercolini, D., Ricciardi, A., Zotta, T., 2019. Advancing integration of data on food microbiome studies: FoodMicrobionet 3.1, a major upgrade of the FoodMicrobionet database. International Journal of Food Microbiology 305, 108249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2019.108249
• Parente, E., Ricciardi, A., Zotta, T., 2020. The microbiota of dairy milk: A review. Int Dairy J 107, 104714. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.idairyj.2020.104714
• Parente, E., Zotta, T., Ricciardi, A., 2021. Microbial association networks in cheese: a meta-analysis. Biorxiv 2021.07.21.453196. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.21.453196
• Zotta, T., Ricciardi, A., Condelli, N., Parente, E., 2022. Metataxonomic and metagenomic approaches for the study of undefined strain starters for cheese manufacture. Crit Rev Food Sci 62, 3898–3912. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2020.1870927
• Parente, E., Zotta, T., Ricciardi, A., 2022. A review of methods for the inference and experimental confirmation of microbial association networks in cheese. Int J Food Microbiol 368, 109618. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2022.109618
• Parente, E., Zotta, T., Ricciardi, A., 2022. FoodMicrobionet v4: A large, integrated, open and transparent database for food bacterial communities. Int. J. Food Microbiol. 372, 109696. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2022.109696
• Parente, E., Zotta, T., Giavalisco, M., Ricciardi, A., 2023. Metataxonomic insights in the distribution of Lactobacillaceae in foods and food environments. Int J Food Microbiol 391, 110124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2023.110124
• Parente, E., Ricciardi, A., 2024. A Comprehensive View of Food Microbiota: Introducing FoodMicrobionet v5. Foods 13, 1689. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods13111689
• Ricciardi, A., López, F.N.A., Giavalisco, M., Pietrafesa, R., Parente, E., 2025. Determining the core bacterial and fungal genera in table olive fermentations. Int. J. Food Microbiol. 442, 111344. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2025.111344