ReviewNature ecology & evolution2022
Ecological modelling approaches for predicting emergent properties in microbial communities.
Review in Nature ecology & evolution, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 113 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
113 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 233 citations in OpenAlex.
- Principles for Rigorous Design and Application of Synthetic Microbial Communities.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Pooled it
- Coexistence Theory for Microbial Ecology, and Vice Versa.Environmental microbiology · 2025Pooled it
- Harnessing synthetic microbial communities for desert vegetation restoration.Synthetic and systems biotechnology · 2027Review
- Autoinducer 2 as a universal language in microbial consortia: decoding molecular mechanisms, ecological impacts, and application.Gut microbes · 2026Review
- A paleoecological trophic network model of the Early Ordovician Lower Fezouata Shale (Morocco) fossil fauna.iScience · 2026Article
- Microbiome-metabolite signaling networks in gastrointestinal disease: systems biology, network rewiring, and precision therapeutics.Archives of microbiology · 2026Review
- Gut Microbiota Resilience and Environmental Stressors: A Hidden Key to Lifespan Optimization?Probiotics and antimicrobial proteins · 2026Review
- Modelling the role of the microbiome in antimicrobial resistance across scales.Nature microbiology · 2026Review
- AI-empowered human microbiome research.Gut · 2026Review
- Biofilm synergy byBiofilm · 2026Article
- Multilevel selection in multitype populations.PNAS nexus · 2026Article
- Towards Key Principles of Host-Associated Microbiome Assembly.Ecology letters · 2026Article
- Dynamical Systems-Constrained Metabolic Modeling Enables Forecasting of Host-Microbiome Dynamics.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Review
- Mathematical Modelling and Intuition in Microbiology: A Perspective.Environmental microbiology · 2026Review
- Article
- Emergent coexistence and the limits of reductionism in ecological communities.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Bacterial population dynamics during colonization of solid tumors.Molecular systems biology · 2026Article
- Microbial biotechnology meets ecological theory: a unified framework to design industrial microbial consortia.International microbiology : the official journal of the Spanish Society for Microbiology · 2026Review
- Ecology-guided Bacillus SynCom from a rice-duckweed core reveals division of labor for concurrent growth promotion and sheath blight suppression.Microbiome · 2026Article
53 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 6 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Recent studies have brought forward the critical role of emergent properties in shaping microbial communities and the ecosystems of which they are a part. Emergent properties-patterns or functions that cannot be deduced linearly from the properties of the constituent parts-underlie important ecological characteristics such as resilience, niche expansion and spatial self-organization. While it is clear that emergent properties are a consequence of interactions within the community, their non-linear nature makes mathematical modelling imperative for establishing the quantitative link between community structure and function. As the need for conservation and rational modulation of microbial ecosystems is increasingly apparent, so is the consideration of the benefits and limitations of the approaches to model emergent properties. Here we review ecosystem modelling approaches from the viewpoint of emergent properties. We consider the scope, advantages and limitations of Lotka-Volterra, consumer-resource, trait-based, individual-based and genome-scale metabolic models. Future efforts in this research area would benefit from capitalizing on the complementarity between these approaches towards enabling rational modulation of complex microbial ecosystems.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.