Department of Life Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be'er-Sheva, Israel.
Trends Microbiol. 2023 Jul;31(7):672-680. doi: 10.1016/j.tim.2023.01.007. Epub 2023 Feb 21.
Plasmids shape microbial communities' diversity, structure, and function. Nevertheless, we lack a mechanistic understanding of how community structure and dynamics emerge from local microbe-plasmid interactions and coevolution. Addressing this gap is challenging because multiple processes operate simultaneously at multiple levels of organization. For example, immunity operates between a plasmid and a cell, but incompatibility mechanisms regulate coexistence between plasmids. Conceptualizing microbe-plasmid communities as complex adaptive systems is a promising approach to overcoming these challenges. I illustrate how agent-based evolutionary modeling, extended by network analysis, can be used to quantify the relative importance of local processes governing community dynamics. These theoretical developments can advance our understanding of plasmid ecology and evolution, especially when combined with empirical data.
质粒塑造了微生物群落的多样性、结构和功能。然而，我们对于群落结构和动态如何从局部微生物-质粒相互作用和共同进化中产生，缺乏机制上的理解。要解决这一差距具有挑战性，因为多个过程在多个组织层次上同时发生。例如，免疫作用发生在质粒和细胞之间，但不相容性机制调节质粒之间的共存。将微生物-质粒群落概念化为复杂适应系统是克服这些挑战的一种有前途的方法。我说明了基于主体的进化建模如何通过网络分析扩展，用于量化控制群落动态的局部过程的相对重要性。这些理论发展可以增进我们对质粒生态学和进化的理解，特别是当与经验数据结合使用时。
