Enhancing microbial predator-prey detection with network and trait-based analyses.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Network analyses are often applied to microbial communities using sequencing survey datasets. However, associations in such networks do not necessarily indicate actual biotic interactions, and even if they do, the nature of the interactions commonly remains unclear. While network analyses are valuable for generating hypotheses, the inferred hypotheses are rarely experimentally confirmed.

Results

We employed cross-kingdom network analyses, applied trait-based functions to the microorganisms, and subsequently experimentally investigated the found putative predator-prey interactions to evaluate whether, and to what extent, correlations indicate actual predator-prey relationships. For this, we investigated algae and their protistan predators in biocrusts of three dist

SUBMITTER: Martinez Rendon C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11792678 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature