 Researchers at North Carolina State University, led by Jiri Hulcr, then grew the samples in a culture until the bacterial colonies were large enough to be photographed and then these pictures were posted on the Belly Button Biodiversity Project's website (volunteers were given sample numbers so that they could view their own samples online).These samples then were analyzed using 16S rDNA libraries so that strains that did not grow well in cultures could be identified.The researchers at North Carolina State University discovered that while it was difficult to predict every strain of bacteria in the microbiome of the navel that they could predict which strains would be prevalent and which strains of bacteria would be quite rare in the microbiome.