Abstract
Australia is one of the world’s most biodiverse continents. It has been geologically separated from other continents for over 20 million years, which has allowed a period of extensive evolutionary divergence. As a result, Australia has a very high rate of endemism in both its flora, fauna and associated microflora. Mapping Australian Actinomycete Diversity reveals that Australian substrates contain rare and novel actinomycetes, including novel streptomycetes. There is, therefore, an exiting opportunity within Australia to make contributions in the field of drug discovery, agriculture, food and in the other areas of biotechnology through the acquisition and screening of this microbiota.
