Tecon Robin, Mitri Sara, Ciccarese Davide, Or Dani, van der Meer Jan Roelof, Johnson David R
Department of Environmental Systems Science, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland.
Department of Fundamental Microbiology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
mSystems. 2019 Feb 5;4(1). doi: 10.1128/mSystems.00265-18. eCollection 2019 Jan-Feb.
Microbial communities are inherently complex systems. To address this complexity, microbial ecologists are developing new, more elaborate laboratory models at an ever-increasing pace. These model microbial communities and habitats have opened up the exploration of new territories that lie between the simplicity and controllability of "synthetic" systems and the convolution and complexity of natural environments. Here, we discuss this classic methodological divide, we propose a conceptual perspective that integrates new research developments, and we sketch a 3-point possible roadmap to cross the divide between controllability and complexity in microbial ecology.
微生物群落本质上是复杂的系统。为应对这种复杂性，微生物生态学家正以越来越快的速度开发新的、更精细的实验室模型。这些模型微生物群落和栖息地开启了对介于“合成”系统的简单性和可控性与自然环境的复杂性和卷积之间的新领域的探索。在此，我们讨论这种经典的方法学划分，提出一种整合新研究进展的概念视角，并勾勒出一条跨越微生物生态学中可控性与复杂性之间鸿沟的三点可行路线图。
