Resource competition can explain simplicity in microbial community assembly.

ABSTRACT: Predicting the composition and diversity of communities is a central goal in ecology. While community assembly is considered hard to predict, laboratory microcosms often follow a simple assembly rule based on the outcome of pairwise competitions. This assembly rule predicts that a species that is excluded by another species in pairwise competition cannot survive in a multispecies community with that species. Despite the empirical success of this bottom-up prediction, its mechanistic origin has remained elusive. In this study, we elucidate how this simple pattern in community assembly can emerge from resource competition. Our geometric analysis of a consumer-resource model shows that trio community assembly is always predictable from pairwise outcomes when one species grows faster than anot

SUBMITTER: Lee H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10469513 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature