Complementary resource preferences spontaneously emerge in diauxic microbial communities.

ABSTRACT: Many microbes grow diauxically, utilizing the available resources one at a time rather than simultaneously. The properties of communities of microbes growing diauxically remain poorly understood, largely due to a lack of theory and models of such communities. Here, we develop and study a minimal model of diauxic microbial communities assembling in a serially diluted culture. We find that unlike co-utilizing communities, diauxic community assembly repeatably and spontaneously leads to communities with complementary resource preferences, namely communities where species prefer different resources as their top choice. Simulations and theory explain that the emergence of complementarity is driven by the disproportionate contribution of the top choice resource to the growth of a diauxic species

SUBMITTER: Wang Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8602314 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature