Metabolic cooperation and spatiotemporal niche partitioning in a kefir microbial community.

ABSTRACT: Microbial communities often undergo intricate compositional changes yet also maintain stable coexistence of diverse species. The mechanisms underlying long-term coexistence remain unclear as system-wide studies have been largely limited to engineered communities, ex situ adapted cultures or synthetic assemblies. Here, we show how kefir, a natural milk-fermenting community of prokaryotes (predominantly lactic and acetic acid bacteria) and yeasts (family Saccharomycetaceae), realizes stable coexistence through spatiotemporal orchestration of species and metabolite dynamics. During milk fermentation, kefir grains (a polysaccharide matrix synthesized by kefir microorganisms) grow in mass but remain unchanged in composition. In contrast, the milk is colonized in a sequential manner in which ear

SUBMITTER: Blasche S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7610452 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature