A Scale-Free, Fully Connected Global Transition Network Underlies Known Microbiome Diversity

Area of Science:

• Microbiology
• Computational Biology
• Ecology

Background:

• Microbiome structural similarity is known, but global patterns remain unclear.
• Understanding microbiome transitions is crucial for global diversity evolution.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a search-based microbiome transition network to analyze global microbiome homology.
• To derive a global roadmap of microbiome dispersal and diversity propagation.

Main Methods:

• Constructed a composition-similarity-based network of 177,022 microbiomes.
• Traversed the network to assess global microbiome connectivity.
• Tracked the minimum spanning tree to map dispersal routes.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated that any microbiome is, on average, seven neighbors from any other globally, indicating inherent homology.
• The network is scale-free, suggesting robust microbiome transitions.
• Derived a global roadmap of microbiome dispersal and diversity formulation.

Conclusions:

• Search-based microbiome networks offer a scalable reference for tracing microbiome origins and evolution.
• The findings highlight the interconnectedness and stability of global microbiomes.
• Provides a framework for understanding microbial beta-diversity across diverse habitats.