Cohesion: a method for quantifying the connectivity of microbial communities.

ABSTRACT: The ability to predict microbial community dynamics lags behind the quantity of data available in these systems. Most predictive models use only environmental parameters, although a long history of ecological literature suggests that community complexity should also be an informative parameter. Thus, we hypothesize that incorporating information about a community's complexity might improve predictive power in microbial models. Here, we present a new metric, called community 'cohesion,' that quantifies the degree of connectivity of a microbial community. We analyze six long-term (10+ years) microbial data sets using the cohesion metrics and validate our approach using data sets where absolute abundances of taxa are available. As a case study of our metrics' utility, we show that community c

SUBMITTER: Herren CM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5649174 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature