Reducing the arbitrary: fuzzy detection of microbial ecotones and ecosystems - focus on the pelagic environment.

ABSTRACT:

Background

One of the central objectives of microbial ecology is to study the distribution of microbial communities and their association with their environments. Biogeographical studies have partitioned the oceans into provinces and regions, but the identification of their boundaries remains challenging, hindering our ability to study transition zones (i.e. ecotones) and microbial ecosystem heterogeneity. Fuzzy clustering is a promising method to do so, as it creates overlapping sets of clusters. The outputs of these analyses thus appear both structured (into clusters) and gradual (due to the overlaps), which aligns with the inherent continuity of the pelagic environment, and solves the issue of defining ecosystem boundaries.

Results

We show the suitability of applying fuzz

SUBMITTER: Bagnaro A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8066478 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature