Diversity begets diversity during community assembly until ecological limits impose a diversity ceiling.

ABSTRACT: Microbial communities are hugely diverse, but we do not yet understand how species invasions and extinctions drive and limit their diversity. On the one hand, the ecological limits hypothesis posits that diversity is primarily limited by environmental resources. On the other hand, the diversity-begets-diversity hypothesis posits that such limits can be easily lifted when new ecological niches are created by biotic interactions. To find out which hypothesis better explains the assembly of microbial communities, we used metabolic modelling. We represent each microbial species by a metabolic network that harbours thousands of biochemical reactions. Together, these reactions determine which carbon and energy sources a species can use, and which metabolic by-products-potential nutrients for oth

SUBMITTER: San Roman M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9293205 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature