Function and functional redundancy in microbial systems
Name
Louca et al. 2018.pdf
Size
3.71 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
a7b867afdf80b7b3c112e0d781b60529
Author(s)
Louca, Stilianos
Mazel, Florent
Albright, Michaeline B. N.
Huber, Julie A.
O’Connor, Mary I.
Ackermann, Martin
Hahn, Aria S.
Srivastava, Diane S.
Crowe, Sean A.
Doebeli, Michael
Date Issued
April 2018
Journal
Nature Ecology & Evolution
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
Citation
Louca, Stilianos et al. “Function and Functional Redundancy in Microbial Systems.” Nature Ecology & Evolution 2, 6 (April 2018): 936–943 © 2018 Nature Publishing Group
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Microbial communities often exhibit incredible taxonomic diversity, raising questions regarding the mechanisms enabling species coexistence and the role of this diversity in community functioning. On the one hand, many coexisting but taxonomically distinct microorganisms can encode the same energy-yielding metabolic functions, and this functional redundancy contrasts with the expectation that species should occupy distinct metabolic niches. On the other hand, the identity of taxa encoding each function can vary substantially across space or time with little effect on the function, and this taxonomic variability is frequently thought to result from ecological drift between equivalent organisms. Here, we synthesize the powerful paradigm emerging from these two patterns, connecting the roles of function, functional redundancy and taxonomy in microbial systems. We conclude that both patterns are unlikely to be the result of ecological drift, but are inevitable emergent properties of open microbial systems resulting mainly from biotic interactions and environmental and spatial processes.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
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.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0519-1
