Can feature IDs be used to compare across different studies?

Hello Qiime2 Forum,

Are the alphanumeric feature IDs (e.g. ebed46494daae0c7dd626145c6a75b71 ) in the feature table unique globally or to our specific study? Can it be used to compare our study with published datasets which contain the Qiime2-feature IDs?

Thank you,
Shrez

Hello @shrez,

I believe they are unique globally because they are hashes of the corresponding sequence itself. Thus they can be used to compare between studies, yes.