Hu Jiliang, Amor Daniel R, Barbier Matthieu, Bunin Guy, Gore Jeff
Physics of Living Systems, Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Science. 2022 Oct 7;378(6615):85-89. doi: 10.1126/science.abm7841. Epub 2022 Oct 6.
From tropical forests to gut microbiomes, ecological communities host notably high numbers of coexisting species. Beyond high biodiversity, communities exhibit a range of complex dynamics that are difficult to explain under a unified framework. Using bacterial microcosms, we performed a direct test of theory predicting that simple community-level features dictate emergent behaviors of communities. As either the number of species or the strength of interactions increases, we show that microbial ecosystems transition between three distinct dynamical phases, from a stable equilibrium in which all species coexist to partial coexistence to emergence of persistent fluctuations in species abundances, in the order predicted by theory. Under fixed conditions, high biodiversity and fluctuations reinforce each other. Our results demonstrate predictable emergent patterns of diversity and dynamics in ecological communities.
从热带森林到肠道微生物群落，生态群落中同时存在的物种数量显著众多。除了高生物多样性之外，群落还展现出一系列复杂的动态变化，这些变化在统一框架下难以解释。我们利用细菌微观世界进行了一项直接的理论测试，该理论预测简单的群落层面特征决定了群落的涌现行为。随着物种数量或相互作用强度的增加，我们发现微生物生态系统在三个不同的动态阶段之间转变，从所有物种共存的稳定平衡状态，到部分共存状态，再到物种丰度出现持续波动，其顺序与理论预测一致。在固定条件下，高生物多样性和波动相互强化。我们的结果证明了生态群落中多样性和动态变化的可预测涌现模式。
