title: Systems biology of microbial communities.
abstract: Microbes exist naturally in a wide range of environments in communities where their interactions are significant, spanning the extremes of high acidity and high temperature environments to soil and the ocean. We present a practical discussion of three different approaches for modeling microbial communities: rate equations, individual-based modeling, and population dynamics. We illustrate the approaches with detailed examples. Each approach is best fit to different levels of system representation, and they have different needs for detailed biological input. Thus, this set of approaches is able to address the operation and function of microbial communities on a wide range of organizational levels.
authors.affiliation: Biosciences and Biotechnology Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Navid
authors.forename: Cheol-Min
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Ghim
authors.forename: Andrew T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Fenley
authors.forename: Sooyeon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yoon
authors.forename: Sungmin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Eivind
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Almaas
mesh_terms: D008829:Microbiology; D008954:Models, Biological; D049490:Systems Biology / Q000379:methods*