ArticleScience advances2020
Transient invaders can induce shifts between alternative stable states of microbial communities.
Article in Science advances, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 77 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
77 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Meta-analysis reveals the effects of microbial inoculants on the biomass and diversity of soil microbial communities.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Pooled it
- Decoding microbial metabolic complementarity from individual traits to community structuring.Ecology · 2026Article
- Encapsulation-mediated bioformulation of biocrust inoculants: microbial delivery strategies for dryland soil restoration.Archives of microbiology · 2026Review
- Bacterial degradation of a plant toxin and nutrient competition with commensals trade off to constrain pathogen growth.mSystems · 2026Article
- Transient dynamics and nonlinear fitness: A matrix approach to pulse and press perturbation.Ecology · 2026Article
- Keystone concept revisited: insights into microbial community dynamics and control.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- The interplay between ecological networks drives host-plasmid community dynamics.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- The network structure of cross-feeding impacts microbial community diversity under growth-inhibiting stresses.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Effects of Microbial Inoculants from Three Nutrient-Poor Environments on Soil Improvement and Plant Growth Promotion in Sandy Soil.Microorganisms · 2026Article
- Microbiome assembly statistics toward ecosystem-scale insights, forecasting, and management.The ISME journal · 2026Review
- Microbial community coalescence restructures co-occurrence architecture and generates regime-specific patterns of network complexity and stability.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Antibiotics and priority effects on colonizing resistant Escherichia coli strain assemblages in a community setting.PloS one · 2026Article
- Spatial proximity dictates bacterial competition and expansion in microbial communities.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Multi-Habitat Landscape Promotes Microbial Diversity: Insights from the Traditional Agricultural Heritage and the Global Trend.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Resource diversity and supply drive colonization resistance.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Commensal acidification of specific gut regions produces a protective priority effect against enteropathogenic bacterial infection.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Overcoming toxicity: How nonantagonistic microbes manage to thrive in boom-and-bust environments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Macroecological patterns in experimental microbial communities.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Biotic resistance predictably shifts microbial invasion regimes.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Competition for shared resources increases dependence on initial population size during coalescence of gut microbial communities.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
17 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Microbial dispersal often leads to the arrival of outsider organisms into ecosystems. When their arrival gives rise to successful invasions, outsider species establish within the resident community, which can markedly alter the ecosystem. Seemingly less influential, the potential impact of unsuccessful invaders that interact only transiently with the community has remained largely ignored. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that these transient invasions can induce a lasting transition to an alternative stable state, even when the invader species itself does not survive the transition. First, we develop a mechanistic understanding of how environmental changes caused by these transient invaders can drive a community shift in a simple, bistable model system. Beyond this, we show that transient invaders can also induce switches between stable states in more complex communities isolated from natural soil samples. Our results demonstrate that short-term interactions with an invader species can induce lasting shifts in community composition and function.
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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.