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Updated: Jan 20, 2026
Artificial Selection: Visualization in Plants and Data Analysis - Concept
Artificially selecting microbial communities: If we can breed dogs, why not microbiomes?
Flor I Arias-Sánchez1, Björn Vessman1, Sara Mitri1
1Department of Fundamental Microbiology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Abstract:
Natural microbial communities perform many functions that are crucial for human well-being. Yet we have very little control over them, and we do not know how to optimize their functioning. One idea is to breed microbial communities as we breed dogs: by comparing a set of microbiomes and allowing the best-performing ones to generate new communities, and so on. Although this idea seems simple, designing such a selection experiment brings with it many decisions with surprising outcomes. Xie and colleagues developed a computational model that reveals this complexity and shows how different experimental design decisions can impact the success of such an experiment.
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