Strength of species interactions determines biodiversity and stability in microbial communities
Name
671008v1.full.pdf
Description
Submitted version
Size
1.97 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
057dc5cb81561ed7dde830c16e24b80c
Author(s)
Ratzke, Christoph
Barrere, Julien Michel Roland
Gore, Jeff
Date Issued
February 2020
Journal
Nature Ecology and Evolution
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Ratzke, Christoph et al. "Strength of species interactions determines biodiversity and stability in microbial communities." Nature Ecology and Evolution 4, 3 (February 2020): 376–383 © 2020 The Author(s)
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
Organisms—especially microbes—tend to live together in ecosystems. While some of these ecosystems are very biodiverse, others are not, and while some are very stable over time, others undergo strong temporal fluctuations. Despite a long history of research and a plethora of data, it is not fully understood what determines the biodiversity and stability of ecosystems. Theory and experiments suggest a connection between species interaction, biodiversity and the stability of ecosystems, where an increase in ecosystem stability with biodiversity could be observed in several cases. However, what causes these connections remains unclear. Here, we show in microbial ecosystems in the laboratory that the concentrations of available nutrients can set the strength of interactions between bacteria. High nutrient concentrations allowed the bacteria to strongly alter the chemical environment, causing on average more negative interactions between species. These stronger interactions excluded more species from the community, resulting in a loss of biodiversity. At the same time, the stronger interactions also decreased the stability of the microbial communities, providing a mechanistic link between species interaction, biodiversity and stability in microbial ecosystems.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1099-4
