ArticleThe ISME journal2016
Microbial diversity arising from thermodynamic constraints.
Article in The ISME journal, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed.
- When is microbial cross-feeding evolutionarily stable?bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Thermodynamics Underpinning the Microbial Community-Level Nitrogen Energy Metabolism.Environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Dynamics of diazotroph particle colonization in the Arctic Ocean.The ISME journal · 2025Article
- Optimal enzyme profiles in unbranched metabolic pathways.Interface focus · 2024Article
- Closed ecosystems extract energy through self-organized nutrient cycles.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Functional convergence in slow-growing microbial communities arises from thermodynamic constraints.The ISME journal · 2023Article
- Vertically stratified methane, nitrogen and sulphur cycling and coupling mechanisms in mangrove sediment microbiomes.Microbiome · 2023Article
- Diversity and metabolic energy in bacteria.FEMS microbiology letters · 2023Article
- Microbial Community Composition and Activity in Saline Soils of Coastal Agro-Ecosystems.Microorganisms · 2022Article
- The Microbial Mechanisms of a Novel Photosensitive Material (Treated Rape Pollen) in Anti-Biofilm Process under Marine Environment.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Article
- Interacting Bioenergetic and Stoichiometric Controls on Microbial Growth.Frontiers in microbiology · 2022Article
- Thermodynamic constraints on the assembly and diversity of microbial ecosystems are different near to and far from equilibrium.PLoS computational biology · 2021Article
- The Rhodamine Isothiocyanate Analogue as a Quorum Sensing Inhibitor Has the Potential to Control Microbially-Induced Biofouling.Marine drugs · 2020Article
- Thermodynamic modelling of synthetic communities predicts minimum free energy requirements for sulfate reduction and methanogenesis.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2020Article
- Reactivity, fate and functional roles of dissolved organic matter in anoxic inland waters.Biology letters · 2020Article
- Systematic selection of chemical fingerprint features improves the Gibbs energy prediction of biochemical reactions.Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) · 2019Article
- Methane formation in tropical reservoirs predicted from sediment age and nitrogen.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Increasing sulfate levels show a differential impact on synthetic communities comprising different methanogens and a sulfate reducer.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2019Article
- Interrogating metabolism as an electron flow system.Current opinion in systems biology · 2019Review
- Hydrogenotrophic methanogens of the mammalian gut: Functionally similar, thermodynamically different-A modelling approach.PloS one · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The microbial world displays an immense taxonomic diversity. This diversity is manifested also in a multitude of metabolic pathways that can utilise different substrates and produce different products. Here, we propose that these observations directly link to thermodynamic constraints that inherently arise from the metabolic basis of microbial growth. We show that thermodynamic constraints can enable coexistence of microbes that utilise the same substrate but produce different end products. We find that this thermodynamics-driven emergence of diversity is most relevant for metabolic conversions with low free energy as seen for example under anaerobic conditions, where population dynamics is governed by thermodynamic effects rather than kinetic factors such as substrate uptake rates. These findings provide a general understanding of the microbial diversity based on the first principles of thermodynamics. As such they provide a thermodynamics-based framework for explaining the observed microbial diversity in different natural and synthetic environments.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.