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Growth tradeoffs produce complex microbial communities on a single limiting resource.

ABSTRACT: The relationship between the dynamics of a community and its constituent pairwise interactions is a fundamental problem in ecology. Higher-order ecological effects beyond pairwise interactions may be key to complex ecosystems, but mechanisms to produce these effects remain poorly understood. Here we model microbial growth and competition to show that higher-order effects can arise from variation in multiple microbial growth traits, such as lag times and growth rates, on a single limiting resource with no other interactions. These effects produce a range of ecological phenomena: an unlimited number of strains can exhibit multistability and neutral coexistence, potentially with a single keystone strain; strains that coexist in pairs do not coexist all together; and a strain that wins all pairwise competitions can go extinct in a mixed competition. Since variation in multiple growth traits is ubiquitous in microbial populations, our results indicate these higher-order effects may also be widespread, especially in laboratory ecology and evolution experiments.

SUBMITTER: Manhart M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6086922 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Growth tradeoffs produce complex microbial communities on a single limiting resource.

Manhart Michael M Shakhnovich Eugene I EI

Nature communications 20180810 1

The relationship between the dynamics of a community and its constituent pairwise interactions is a fundamental problem in ecology. Higher-order ecological effects beyond pairwise interactions may be key to complex ecosystems, but mechanisms to produce these effects remain poorly understood. Here we model microbial growth and competition to show that higher-order effects can arise from variation in multiple microbial growth traits, such as lag times and growth rates, on a single limiting resourc ...[more]

PMID: 30097583

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Project description:In the beer brewing industry, microbial spoilage presents a consistent threat that must be monitored and controlled to ensure the palatability of a finished product. Many of the predominant beer spoilage microbes have been identified and characterized, but the mechanisms of contamination and persistence remain an open area of study. Postproduction, many beers are distributed as kegs that are attached to draft delivery systems in retail settings where ample opportunities for microbial spoilage are present. As such, restaurants and bars can experience substantial costs and downtime for cleaning when beer draft lines become heavily contaminated. Spoilage monitoring on the retail side of the beer industry is often overlooked, yet this arena may represent one of the largest threats to the profitability of a beer if its flavor profile becomes substantially distorted by contaminating microbes. In this study, we sampled and cultured microbial communities found in beers dispensed from a retail draft system to identify the contaminating bacteria and yeasts. We also evaluated their capability to establish new biofilms in a controlled setting. Among four tested beer types, we identified over a hundred different contaminant bacteria and nearly 20 wild yeasts. The culturing experiments demonstrated that most of these microbes were viable and capable of joining new biofilm communities. These data provide an important reference for monitoring specific beer spoilage microbes in draft systems and we provide suggestions for cleaning protocol improvements. IMPORTANCE Beer production, packaging, and service are each vulnerable to contamination by microbes that metabolize beer chemicals and impart undesirable flavors, which can result in the disposal of entire batches. Therefore, great effort is taken by brewmasters to reduce and monitor contamination during production and packaging. A commonly overlooked quality control stage of a beer supply chain is at the retail service end, where beer kegs supply draft lines in bars and restaurants under nonsterile conditions. We found that retail draft line contamination is rampant and that routine line cleaning methods are insufficient to efficiently suppress beer spoilage. Thus, many customers unknowingly consume spoiled versions of the beers they consume. This study identified the bacteria and yeast that were resident in retail draft beer samples and also investigated their abilities to colonize tubing material as members of biofilm communities.

Dataset Information

Growth tradeoffs produce complex microbial communities on a single limiting resource.

Publications

Growth tradeoffs produce complex microbial communities on a single limiting resource.

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