ArticleEcology letters2019
The fitness of chemotrophs increases when their catabolic by-products are consumed by other species.
Article in Ecology letters, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Evolutionary mechanisms underlying bacterial adaptation to the plant environment.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- Thermodynamics Underpinning the Microbial Community-Level Nitrogen Energy Metabolism.Environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Microbial material cycling, energetic constraints and ecosystem expansion in subsurface ecosystems.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Chemotrophic microorganisms synthesise biomass by utilising energy obtained from a set of chemical reactions that convert resources to by-products, forming catabolic interactions. The amount of energy obtained per catabolic reaction decreases with the abundance of the by-product named as the 'abundant resource premium'. Consider two species, Species 1 and 2, Species 1 obtains energy from a reaction that converts resource A to by-product B. Species 2 then utilises B as its resource, extracting energy from a reaction that converts B to C. Thus, the presence of Species 2 reduces the abundance of B, which improves the fitness of Species 1 by increasing the energy acquisition per reaction of A to B. We discuss the population dynamic implication of this effect and its importance in expanding a realised niche, boosting material flow through the ecosystem and providing mutualistic interactions among species linked by the material flow. Introducing thermodynamics into population ecology could offer us fundamental ecological insights into understanding the ecology of chemotrophic microorganisms dominating the subsurface realm.
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Registered trials
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