Combined niche and neutral effects in a microbial wastewater treatment community.

ABSTRACT: It has long been assumed that differences in the relative abundance of taxa in microbial communities reflect differences in environmental conditions. Here we show that in the economically and environmentally important microbial communities in a wastewater treatment plant, the population dynamics are consistent with neutral community assembly, where chance and random immigration play an important and predictable role in shaping the communities. Using dynamic observations, we demonstrate a straightforward calibration of a purely neutral model and a parsimonious method to incorporate environmental influence on the reproduction (or birth) rate of individual taxa. The calibrated model parameters are biologically plausible, with the population turnover and diversity in the heterotrophic communit

SUBMITTER: Ofiteru ID 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2932620 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature