Multi-stability and the origin of microbial community types

: Gonze D, Lahti L, Raes J, Faust K

Publisher: NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP

: London

: 2017

: ISME Journal

: ISME JOURNAL

: ISME J

: 11

: 10

: 2159

: 2166

: 8

: 1751-7362

: 1751-7370

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2017.60

: 10.1038/ismej.2017.60

The study of host-associated microbial community composition has suggested the presence of alternative community types. We discuss three mechanisms that could explain these observations. The most commonly invoked mechanism links community types to a response to environmental change; alternatively, community types were shown to emerge from interactions between members of local communities sampled from a metacommunity. Here, we emphasize multi-stability as a third mechanism, giving rise to different community types in the same environmental conditions. We illustrate with a toy model how multi-stability can generate community types and discuss the consequences of multi-stability for data interpretation.