A resource allocation theory for the evolution of microbial communities

Informations

Funding country

Netherlands

Acronym

-

URL

-

Start date

11/15/2020

End date

6/23/2022

Budget

42,785 EUR

Fundings

Abstract

Though microbial communities are ubiquitous in nature and industrial processes, we understand very little of what shapes their function, stability and diversity. Such understanding is essential for control and design microbial communities. The biggest challenge, we believe, is not a lack of data, but lack of quantitative theoretical concepts and modeling strategies. The last decade has seen breakthroughs in the understanding of the physiology of individual microbial species. This was based on a complete biochemical description of the underlying network, and applying basic biochemical and physical constraints on the allocation of resources, to compute optimal growth strategies. Recent optimality theory of constrained resource allocation revealed that what really matters for such strategies are constraints on the allocation of proteins to different processes and compartments, rather than network structure. This provides a huge simplification, as the number of constraints is much smaller than the number of network components. The idea is therefore: Can we use the theory of constrained-resource allocation for microbial communities? If we can, we provide new perspective to the forces that shape microbial communities, from specific (keystone) species to specific constraints (biochemical, thermodynamic and spatial), identifying what factors determine nutrient exchange, product formation, stability and species abundances.