How environment and ecology control the spatial distribution of microbes in aggregates?

What is it about?

Microbial communities are assembled by the interactions between microorganisms and the local environment. To fully understand and control the formation of microbial aggregates, we need to unravel the principles of both cell-cell, cell-environment and cell-space interactions. Until now, most studies have focused predominantly on single interactions between two microbes. However, microbial ecology is more complex than that, and multiple ecological interactions contribute to microbial community assembly. The identification of distinct spatial distributions of bacteria is a first step towards the understanding the underlying biological mechanisms that govern aggregate formation. We have used a mathematical model to examine the influence of interactions between microorganisms, the local environment and the space competition.

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Photo by Eugene Golovesov on Unsplash

Photo by Eugene Golovesov on Unsplash

Why is it important?

We show that it is possible to evaluate the influence of multiple ecological interactions and the environment on microbial community assembly through mathematical modelling. We have been able to distinguish interspecific segregation of communities in competition, and layered distribution in commensalism. When we considered more than one ecological interaction between populations, the resultant spatial distribution was identified as the one controlled by the most limiting substrate. Additionally, we defined a theoretical parameter that able us to predict the most probable spatial distribution under specific environmental conditions.

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