Uncovering the rules of microbial community invasions

Vila, Jean C.C.; Jones, Matt L.; Patel, Matishalin; Bell, Tom; Rosindell, James

Abstract

Understanding the ecological and evolutionary processes determining the outcome of biological invasions has been the subject of decades of research with most work focusing on macro-organisms. In the context of microbes, invasions remain poorly understood despite being increasingly recognized as important. To shed light on the factors affecting the success of microbial community invasions, we perform simulations using an individual-based nearly neutral model that combines ecological and evolutionary processes. Our simulations qualitatively recreate many empirical patterns and lead to a description of five general rules of invasion: (1) larger communities evolve better invaders and better defenders; (2) where invader and resident fitness difference is large, invasion success is essentially deterministic; (3) propagule pressure contributes to invasion success, if and only if, invaders and residents are competitively similar; (4) increasing the diversity of invaders has a similar effect to increasing the number of invaders; and (5) more diverse communities more successfully resist invasion.

Citation

Vila, J. C., Jones, M. L., Patel, M., Bell, T., & Rosindell, J. (2019). Uncovering the rules of microbial community invasions. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 3(8), 1162-1171. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0952-9

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 24, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jul 29, 2019
• Publication Date: Aug 1, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jun 17, 2024
• Journal: Nature Ecology and Evolution
• Print ISSN: 2397-334X
• Electronic ISSN: 2397-334X
• Publisher: Nature Research
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 8
• Pages: 1162-1171
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-019-0952-9
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4711294