Diversity, stability, and reproducibility in stochastically assembled microbial ecosystems

TL;DR

This paper presents a conceptual model of microbial ecosystems that captures their diversity, stability, and reproducibility, aligning well with real data by emphasizing resource competition and metabolic interactions.

Contribution

The study introduces a stochastic assembly model that explains key properties of microbial ecosystems using minimal resource inputs and metabolic interactions.

Findings

Ecosystems can exhibit high diversity even with a single resource.

Stability increases with ecosystem complexity.

Partial reproducibility is achievable between samples.

Abstract

Microbial ecosystems are remarkably diverse, stable, and often consist of a balanced mixture of core and peripheral species. Here we propose a conceptual model exhibiting all these emergent properties in quantitative agreement with real ecosystem data, specifically species' abundance and prevalence distributions. Resource competition and metabolic commensalism drive stochastic ecosystem assembly in our model. We demonstrate that even when supplied with just one resource, ecosystems can exhibit high diversity, increasing stability, and partial reproducibility between samples.