ArticleScientific reports2020
Mutualistic cross-feeding in microbial systems generates bistability via an Allee effect.
Article in Scientific reports, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Resource landscape shapes the composition and stability of the human vaginal microbiota.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Modeling bacterial growth and Allee effect via Allen-Cahn theoretical framework.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Strengthen or Weaken: Evolutionary Directions of Cross-Feeding After Formation.Environmental microbiology reports · 2025Review
- Akkermansia muciniphila: promises and pitfallsfor next-generation beneficial microorganisms.Archives of microbiology · 2025Review
- Tipping points emerge from weak mutualism in metacommunities.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Genome-Scale Reconstruction of Microbial Dynamic Phenotype: Successes and Challenges.Microorganisms · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
In microbial ecosystems, species not only compete for common resources but may also display mutualistic interactions as a result from metabolic cross-feeding. Such mutualism can lead to bistability. Depending on the initial population sizes, species will either survive or go extinct. Various phenomenological models have been suggested to describe bistability in mutualistic systems. However, these models do not account for interaction mediators such as nutrients. In contrast, nutrient-explicit models do not provide an intuitive understanding of what causes bistability. Here, we reduce a theoretical nutrient-explicit model of two mutualistic cross-feeders in a chemostat, uncovering an explicit relation to a growth model with an Allee effect. We show that the dilution rate in the chemostat leads to bistability by turning a weak Allee effect into a strong Allee effect. This happens as long as there is more production than consumption of cross-fed nutrients. Thanks to the explicit relationship of the reduced model with the underlying experimental parameters, these results allow to predict the biological conditions that sustain or prevent the survival of mutualistic species.
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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.