English: DNA from a marine metagenomics sample was sequenced with our overlapping mate-pair approach. The composite reads were directly compared to 454-FLX sequences from the exact same sample. A) Fraction of reads that could be assigned to a taxon using the composite reads (mean read length 180 bp), the entire 454-FLX dataset (mean read length 207 bp), or longer 454-FLX reads (mean read length 254 bp). B) Comparison of taxon assignments using composite reads and 454-FLX pyrosequencing reads. The top 25 represented taxa, with colored symbols next to the bracket, are listed in Table S1.