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Metabolically cohesive microbial consortia and ecosystem functioning
File(s)
Author(s)
Bell, Thomas
Pascual Garcia, Alberto
Bonhoeffer, Sebastian
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Recent theory and experiments have reported a reproducible tendency for the coexistence of microbial species under controlled environmental conditions. This observation has been explained in6the context of competition for resources and metabolic complementarity given that, in microbial communities, many excreted by-products of metabolism may also be resources. Microbial communities therefore play a key role in promoting their own stability and in shaping the niches of the constituent taxa. We suggest that an intermediate level of organisation between the species and the community level may be pervasive, where tightly-knit metabolic interactions create discrete consortia that are stably maintained. We call these units Metabolically Cohesive Consortia (MeCoCos) and we discuss the environmental context in which we expect their formation, and the ecological and evolutionary consequences of their existence. We argue that the ability to identify MeCoCos would open new avenues to link the species-, community-, and ecosystem-level properties, with consequences for our understanding of microbial ecology and evolution, and an improved ability to predict ecosystem functioning in the wild.
Date Issued
2020-03-22
Date Acceptance
2020-01-31
Citation
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2020, 374 (1798)
URI
URL
DOI
ISSN
0962-8436
Publisher
Royal Society, The
Journal / Book Title
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Volume
374
Issue
1798
Copyright Statement
© 2020 The Author(s)

Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
Sponsor
Commission of the European Communities
The Royal Society
Identifier
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2019.0245
Grant Number
311399
UF140715
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Biology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine - Other Topics
microbial ecology
ecosystem functioning
metabolism
functional groups
SYSTEMS BIOLOGY
GUT MICROBIOME
K-SELECTION
R-SELECTION
EVOLUTION
COMMUNITIES
COOPERATION
BACTERIA
MODEL
DIVERSITY
ecosystem functioning
functional groups
metabolism
microbial ecology
Evolutionary Biology
06 Biological Sciences
11 Medical and Health Sciences
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2020-03-23