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The role of competition versus cooperation in microbial community coalescence

New microbial communities often arise through the mixing of two or more separately assembled parent communities, a phenomenon that has been termed “community coalescence”. Understanding how the interaction structures of complex parent communities determine the outcomes of coalescence events is an im...

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Autores principales: Lechón-Alonso, Pablo, Clegg, Tom, Cook, Jacob, Smith, Thomas P., Pawar, Samraat
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8601617/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34748540
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009584
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author Lechón-Alonso, Pablo
Clegg, Tom
Cook, Jacob
Smith, Thomas P.
Pawar, Samraat
author_facet Lechón-Alonso, Pablo
Clegg, Tom
Cook, Jacob
Smith, Thomas P.
Pawar, Samraat
author_sort Lechón-Alonso, Pablo
collection PubMed
description New microbial communities often arise through the mixing of two or more separately assembled parent communities, a phenomenon that has been termed “community coalescence”. Understanding how the interaction structures of complex parent communities determine the outcomes of coalescence events is an important challenge. While recent work has begun to elucidate the role of competition in coalescence, that of cooperation, a key interaction type commonly seen in microbial communities, is still largely unknown. Here, using a general consumer-resource model, we study the combined effects of competitive and cooperative interactions on the outcomes of coalescence events. To do so, we simulate coalescence events between pairs of communities with different degrees of competition for shared carbon resources and cooperation through cross-feeding on leaked metabolic by-products (facilitation). We also study how structural and functional properties of post-coalescence communities evolve when they are subjected to repeated coalescence events. We find that in coalescence events, the less competitive and more cooperative parent communities contribute a higher proportion of species to the new community because of their superior ability to deplete resources and resist invasions. Consequently, when a community is subjected to repeated coalescence events, it gradually evolves towards being less competitive and more cooperative, as well as more speciose, robust and efficient in resource use. Encounters between microbial communities are becoming increasingly frequent as a result of anthropogenic environmental change, and there is great interest in how the coalescence of microbial communities affects environmental and human health. Our study provides new insights into the mechanisms behind microbial community coalescence, and a framework to predict outcomes based on the interaction structures of parent communities.
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spelling pubmed-86016172021-11-19 The role of competition versus cooperation in microbial community coalescence Lechón-Alonso, Pablo Clegg, Tom Cook, Jacob Smith, Thomas P. Pawar, Samraat PLoS Comput Biol Research Article New microbial communities often arise through the mixing of two or more separately assembled parent communities, a phenomenon that has been termed “community coalescence”. Understanding how the interaction structures of complex parent communities determine the outcomes of coalescence events is an important challenge. While recent work has begun to elucidate the role of competition in coalescence, that of cooperation, a key interaction type commonly seen in microbial communities, is still largely unknown. Here, using a general consumer-resource model, we study the combined effects of competitive and cooperative interactions on the outcomes of coalescence events. To do so, we simulate coalescence events between pairs of communities with different degrees of competition for shared carbon resources and cooperation through cross-feeding on leaked metabolic by-products (facilitation). We also study how structural and functional properties of post-coalescence communities evolve when they are subjected to repeated coalescence events. We find that in coalescence events, the less competitive and more cooperative parent communities contribute a higher proportion of species to the new community because of their superior ability to deplete resources and resist invasions. Consequently, when a community is subjected to repeated coalescence events, it gradually evolves towards being less competitive and more cooperative, as well as more speciose, robust and efficient in resource use. Encounters between microbial communities are becoming increasingly frequent as a result of anthropogenic environmental change, and there is great interest in how the coalescence of microbial communities affects environmental and human health. Our study provides new insights into the mechanisms behind microbial community coalescence, and a framework to predict outcomes based on the interaction structures of parent communities. Public Library of Science 2021-11-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8601617/ /pubmed/34748540 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009584 Text en © 2021 Lechón-Alonso et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Lechón-Alonso, Pablo
Clegg, Tom
Cook, Jacob
Smith, Thomas P.
Pawar, Samraat
The role of competition versus cooperation in microbial community coalescence
title The role of competition versus cooperation in microbial community coalescence
title_full The role of competition versus cooperation in microbial community coalescence
title_fullStr The role of competition versus cooperation in microbial community coalescence
title_full_unstemmed The role of competition versus cooperation in microbial community coalescence
title_short The role of competition versus cooperation in microbial community coalescence
title_sort role of competition versus cooperation in microbial community coalescence
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8601617/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34748540
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009584
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