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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 13, 2025

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations

Published on: February 3, 2023

Predicting the first steps of evolution in randomly assembled communities.

John McEnany¹, Benjamin H Good^2,3,4

¹Biophysics Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.

Nature Communications

|October 1, 2024

Summary

New mathematical models predict how microbial communities evolve. Even small genetic changes can alter community structure and lead to extinctions, impacting microbial ecosystems.

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Last Updated: Jun 13, 2025

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Assembly and Tracking of Microbial Community Development within a Microwell Array Platform

Assembly and Tracking of Microbial Community Development within a Microwell Array Platform

Published on: June 6, 2017

Area of Science:

Microbial Ecology
Evolutionary Biology
Mathematical Modeling

Background:

Microbial communities exhibit complex self-assembly with predictable statistical properties.
Rapid evolution of resident strains can disrupt these established community states.
The interaction between ecological dynamics and evolutionary processes is challenging for current theories.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop a mathematical framework for predicting early evolutionary steps in microbial communities.
To understand how mutations compete with parent strains and other species.
To analyze the influence of community size, niche saturation, and metabolic overlap on evolutionary outcomes.

Main Methods:

Introduction of a novel mathematical framework.
Analysis of competition between new mutations and resident strains.
Modeling of large, randomly assembled communities competing for substitutable resources.

Main Results:

Fitness effects and coexistence probability of mutations depend on community size, niche saturation, and metabolic overlap.
Successful mutations can coexist with parent strains even in saturated communities.
Invading mutants frequently drive extinctions of metabolically distant species.

Conclusions:

The developed framework predicts the initial evolutionary trajectories in microbial communities.
Evolutionary dynamics significantly impact community structure and species composition.
Even minor evolutionary events can leave detectable genetic signatures in natural microbial populations.