How the Physical Environment Shapes the Microbiota

Living systems, from micro- to macro-scales, are strongly impacted by physical factors such as temperature, pH, and the concentration of compounds in their surrounding environment. In the macro-world, it is obvious that small changes in these parameters can have profound, and even devastating, impacts on an ecosystem. For example, in the case of global warming, a change in climate, and specifically a few degrees in temperature, has taken one million species of animals to the brink of extinction. Scale things down 6 orders of magnitude, our gut microbiota also experiences similar changes in temperature due to disease. In this highly competitive environment, physical perturbations inflict long-term consequences on the microbiota ecosystem and, in turn, on the host organism. My laboratory is exploring the feedback between the gut’s physical environment, the microbiota, and disease. Our research highlights the importance of measuring physical parameters for the prediction of microbial dynamics and microbiota therapies.