title: Metabolic resource allocation in individual microbes determines ecosystem interactions and spatial dynamics.
abstract: The interspecies exchange of metabolites plays a key role in the spatiotemporal dynamics of microbial communities. This raises the question of whether ecosystem-level behavior of structured communities can be predicted using genome-scale metabolic models for multiple organisms. We developed a modeling framework that integrates dynamic flux balance analysis with diffusion on a lattice and applied it to engineered communities. First, we predicted and experimentally confirmed the species ratio to which a two-species mutualistic consortium converges and the equilibrium composition of a newly engineered three-member community. We next identified a specific spatial arrangement of colonies, which gives rise to what we term the "eclipse dilemma": does a competitor placed between a colony and its cross-feeding partner benefit or hurt growth of the original colony? Our experimentally validated finding that the net outcome is beneficial highlights the complex nature of metabolic interactions in microbial communities while at the same time demonstrating their predictability.
authors.affiliation: Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.forename: William R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Harcombe
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics Graduate Program, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
authors.forename: William J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Riehl
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics Graduate Program, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
authors.forename: Ilija
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Dukovski
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics Graduate Program, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
authors.forename: Brian R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Granger
authors.affiliation: Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Betts
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
authors.forename: Alex H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Lang
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics Graduate Program, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
authors.forename: Gracia
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bonilla
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics Graduate Program, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
authors.forename: Amrita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kar
authors.affiliation: Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; Systems Biology Graduate Program, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Leiby
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics Graduate Program, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA; Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
authors.forename: Pankaj
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mehta
authors.affiliation: Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; Faculty of Arts and Sciences Center for Systems Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. Electronic address: cmarx@uidaho.edu.
authors.forename: Christopher J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Marx
authors.affiliation: Bioinformatics Graduate Program, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA; Department of Biology and Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA. Electronic address: dsegre@bu.edu.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Segrè
mesh_terms: D017753:Ecosystem; D064307:Microbiota / Q000502:physiology*; D008954:Models, Biological; D013037:Spatial Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D062211:Spatio-Temporal Analysis