Processes | |
Modeling Microbial Communities: A Call for Collaboration between Experimentalists and Theorists | |
Marco Zaccaria1  Sandra Dedrick1  Babak Momeni1  | |
[1] Department of Biology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA; | |
关键词: microbial communities; mathematical modeling; community ecology; interspecies interactions; mechanistic modeling; phenomenological modeling; | |
DOI : 10.3390/pr5040053 | |
来源: DOAJ |
【 摘 要 】
With our growing understanding of the impact of microbial communities, understanding how such communities function has become a priority. The influence of microbial communities is widespread. Human-associated microbiota impacts health, environmental microbes determine ecosystem sustainability, and microbe-driven industrial processes are expanding. This broad range of applications has led to a wide range of approaches to analyze and describe microbial communities. In particular, theoretical work based on mathematical modeling has been a steady source of inspiration for explaining and predicting microbial community processes. Here, we survey some of the modeling approaches used in different contexts. We promote classifying different approaches using a unified platform, and encourage cataloging the findings in a database. We believe that the synergy emerging from a coherent collection facilitates a better understanding of important processes that determine microbial community functions. We emphasize the importance of close collaboration between theoreticians and experimentalists in formulating, classifying, and improving models of microbial communities.
【 授权许可】
Unknown