title: Synthetic microbial ecosystems: an exciting tool to understand and apply microbial communities.
abstract: Many microbial ecologists have described the composition of microbial communities in a plenitude of environments, which has greatly improved our basic understanding of microorganisms and ecosystems. However, the factors and processes that influence the behaviour and functionality of an ecosystem largely remain black boxes when using conventional approaches. Therefore, synthetic microbial ecology has gained a lot of interest in the last few years. Because of their reduced complexity and increased controllability, synthetic communities are often preferred over complex communities to examine ecological theories. They limit the factors that influence the microbial community to a minimum, allowing their management and identifying specific community responses. However, besides their use for basic research, synthetic ecosystems also found their way towards different applications, like industrial fermentation and bioremediation. Here, we review why and how synthetic microbial communities are applied for research purposes and for which applications they have been and could be successfully used.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Microbial Ecology and Technology (LabMET), Coupure Links 653, 9000, Gent, Belgium.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: De Roy
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Marzorati
authors.forename: Pieter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Van den Abbeele
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Van de Wiele
authors.forename: Nico
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Boon
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001419:Bacteria / Q000378:metabolism*; D018407:Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; D001673:Biodegradation, Environmental; D018441:Biofilms; D019149:Bioreactors; D017753:Ecosystem; D006801:Humans; D059013:Microbial Consortia; D008954:Models, Biological