ArticlePLoS computational biology2020
Microbial communities display alternative stable states in a fluctuating environment.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Coexistence Theory for Microbial Ecology, and Vice Versa.Environmental microbiology · 2025Pooled it
- Host physiology-dependent lysis timing shapes bacteriophage competition under nutrient fluctuations.mSystems · 2026Article
- The importance of regulated resource reallocation during dynamic environmental shifts in yeast.The EMBO journal · 2026Article
- Codon bias variation in Staphylococcus aureus.PloS one · 2026Article
- Macroecological patterns in experimental microbial communities.PLoS computational biology · 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
- Coral high molecular weight carbohydrates support opportunistic microbes in bacterioplankton from an algae-dominated reef.mSystems · 2024Article
- DyMMM-LEAPS: An ML-based framework for modulating evenness and stability in synthetic microbial communities.Biophysical journal · 2024Article
- Evolution of a bistable genetic system in fluctuating and nonfluctuating environments.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Environmental memory alters the fitness effects of adaptive mutations in fluctuating environments.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- Competition for shared resources increases dependence on initial population size during coalescence of gut microbial communities.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Strong environmental memory revealed by experimental evolution in static and fluctuating environments.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Resource competition can explain simplicity in microbial community assembly.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Article
- Guided by the principles of microbiome engineering: Accomplishments and perspectives for environmental use.mLife · 2022Review
- Controlling microbial co-culture based on substrate pulsing can lead to stability through differential fitness advantages.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Network-level containment of single-species bioengineering.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Quantifying the impact of ecological memory on the dynamics of interacting communities.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Dynamic proteome allocation regulates the profile of interaction of auxotrophic bacterial consortia.Royal Society open science · 2022Article
- A macroecological description of alternative stable states reproduces intra- and inter-host variability of gut microbiome.Science advances · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The effect of environmental fluctuations is a major question in ecology. While it is widely accepted that fluctuations and other types of disturbances can increase biodiversity, there are fewer examples of other types of outcomes in a fluctuating environment. Here we explore this question with laboratory microcosms, using cocultures of two bacterial species, P. putida and P. veronii. At low dilution rates we observe competitive exclusion of P. veronii, whereas at high dilution rates we observe competitive exclusion of P. putida. When the dilution rate alternates between high and low, we do not observe coexistence between the species, but rather alternative stable states, in which only one species survives and initial species' fractions determine the identity of the surviving species. The Lotka-Volterra model with a fluctuating mortality rate predicts that this outcome is independent of the timing of the fluctuations, and that the time-averaged mortality would also lead to alternative stable states, a prediction that we confirm experimentally. Other pairs of species can coexist in a fluctuating environment, and again consistent with the model we observe coexistence in the time-averaged dilution rate. We find a similar time-averaging result holds in a three-species community, highlighting that simple linear models can in some cases provide powerful insight into how communities will respond to environmental fluctuations.
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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.