Synthetic Ecology: Building Microbial Communities From The Bottom Up

Ecosystems are arguably the most complex but least understood level of biological organization. Microbial communities, composed of numerous interacting species, are of particular importance as they play key roles in numerous application areas, including biotechnology, agriculture, and medicine. In this talk, I will discuss our efforts toward developing a predictive understanding of the structure and function of microbial communities. We found that a pairwise approximation of interspecific interactions is sufficient for predicting community structure in laboratory microbial communities. Furthermore, using high-throughput microfluidics, we show that interactions typically change qualitatively across environments, but can be predicted based on the growth abilities of individual species. These findings provide the first step toward “synthetic ecology”—the rational design and management of microbial communities.