1
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Meroz N, Livny T, Friedman J. Quantifying microbial interactions: concepts, caveats, and applications. Curr Opin Microbiol 2024; 80:102511. [PMID: 39002491 DOI: 10.1016/j.mib.2024.102511] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/11/2024] [Revised: 06/10/2024] [Accepted: 06/25/2024] [Indexed: 07/15/2024]
Abstract
Microbial communities are fundamental to every ecosystem on Earth and hold great potential for biotechnological applications. However, their complex nature hampers our ability to study and understand them. A common strategy to tackle this complexity is to abstract the community into a network of interactions between its members - a phenomenological description that captures the overall effects of various chemical and physical mechanisms that underpin these relationships. This approach has proven useful for numerous applications in microbial ecology, including predicting community dynamics and stability and understanding community assembly and evolution. However, care is required in quantifying and interpreting interactions. Here, we clarify the concept of an interaction and discuss when interaction measurements are useful despite their context-dependent nature. Furthermore, we categorize different approaches for quantifying interactions, highlighting the research objectives each approach is best suited for.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nittay Meroz
- Institute of Environmental Sciences, Hebrew University, Rehovot
| | - Tal Livny
- Institute of Environmental Sciences, Hebrew University, Rehovot; Department of Immunology and Regenerative Biology, Weizmann Institute, Rehovot
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2
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McEnany J, Good BH. Predicting the First Steps of Evolution in Randomly Assembled Communities. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2023.12.15.571925. [PMID: 38168431 PMCID: PMC10760118 DOI: 10.1101/2023.12.15.571925] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/05/2024]
Abstract
Microbial communities can self-assemble into highly diverse states with predictable statistical properties. However, these initial states can be disrupted by rapid evolution of the resident strains. When a new mutation arises, it competes for resources with its parent strain and with the other species in the community. This interplay between ecology and evolution is difficult to capture with existing community assembly theory. Here, we introduce a mathematical framework for predicting the first steps of evolution in large randomly assembled communities that compete for substitutable resources. We show how the fitness effects of new mutations and the probability that they coexist with their parent depends on the size of the community, the saturation of its niches, and the metabolic overlap between its members. We find that successful mutations are often able to coexist with their parent strains, even in saturated communities with low niche availability. At the same time, these invading mutants often cause extinctions of metabolically distant species. Our results suggest that even small amounts of evolution can produce distinct genetic signatures in natural microbial communities.
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Affiliation(s)
- John McEnany
- Biophysics Program, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
| | - Benjamin H. Good
- Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
- Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
- Chan Zuckerberg Biohub – San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA
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3
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Blumenthal E, Mehta P. Geometry of ecological coexistence and niche differentiation. ARXIV 2023:arXiv:2304.10694v3. [PMID: 37131883 PMCID: PMC10153352] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/04/2023]
Abstract
A fundamental problem in ecology is to understand how competition shapes biodiversity and species coexistence. Historically, one important approach for addressing this question has been to analyze consumer resource models using geometric arguments. This has led to broadly applicable principles such as Tilman's R * and species coexistence cones. Here, we extend these arguments by constructing a novel geometric framework for understanding species coexistence based on convex polytopes in the space of consumer preferences. We show how the geometry of consumer preferences can be used to predict species which may coexist and enumerate ecologically-stable steady states and transitions between them. Collectively, these results provide a framework for understanding the role of species traits within niche theory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emmy Blumenthal
- Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
| | - Pankaj Mehta
- Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
- Biological Design Center, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
- Faculty of Computing and Data Sciences, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
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4
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Blumenthal E, Mehta P. Geometry of ecological coexistence and niche differentiation. Phys Rev E 2023; 108:044409. [PMID: 37978666 DOI: 10.1103/physreve.108.044409] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2023] [Accepted: 09/29/2023] [Indexed: 11/19/2023]
Abstract
A fundamental problem in ecology is to understand how competition shapes biodiversity and species coexistence. Historically, one important approach for addressing this question has been to analyze consumer resource models using geometric arguments. This has led to broadly applicable principles such as Tilman's R^{*} and species coexistence cones. Here, we extend these arguments by constructing a geometric framework for understanding species coexistence based on convex polytopes in the space of consumer preferences. We show how the geometry of consumer preferences can be used to predict species which may coexist and enumerate ecologically stable steady states and transitions between them. Collectively, these results provide a framework for understanding the role of species traits within niche theory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emmy Blumenthal
- Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
| | - Pankaj Mehta
- Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
- Biological Design Center, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
- Faculty of Computing and Data Sciences, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
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5
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Ispolatov Y, Doebeli C, Doebeli M. On the evolutionary emergence of predation. J Theor Biol 2023; 572:111578. [PMID: 37437709 DOI: 10.1016/j.jtbi.2023.111578] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2023] [Revised: 06/13/2023] [Accepted: 07/06/2023] [Indexed: 07/14/2023]
Abstract
In models for the evolution of predation from initially purely competitive species interactions, the propensity of predation is most often assumed to be a direct consequence of the relative morphological and physiological traits of interacting species. Here we explore a model in which predation ability is an independently evolving phenotypic feature, so that even when the relative morphological or physiological traits allow for predation, predation only occurs if the predation ability of individuals has independently evolved to high enough values. In addition to delineating the conditions for the evolutionary emergence of predation, the model reproduces stationary and non-stationary multilevel food webs with the top predators not necessarily having size superiority.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yaroslav Ispolatov
- Departamento de Física, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Astrophysics and Space Science, Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Victor Jara 3493, Santiago, Chile.
| | - Carlos Doebeli
- Imperial College London, Department of Mathematics,, South Kensington Campus, London, SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
| | - Michael Doebeli
- Departments of Mathematics and Zoology, University of British Columbia, 6270 University Boulevard, Vancouver, V6T 1Z4, BC, Canada
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Zhang Z, Zhu H, Dang P, Wang J, Chang W, Wang X, Alghamdi N, Lu A, Zang Y, Wu W, Wang Y, Zhang Y, Cao S, Zhang C. FLUXestimator: a webserver for predicting metabolic flux and variations using transcriptomics data. Nucleic Acids Res 2023; 51:W180-W190. [PMID: 37216602 PMCID: PMC10320190 DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkad444] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2023] [Revised: 04/29/2023] [Accepted: 05/11/2023] [Indexed: 05/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Quantitative assessment of single cell fluxome is critical for understanding the metabolic heterogeneity in diseases. Unfortunately, laboratory-based single cell fluxomics is currently impractical, and the current computational tools for flux estimation are not designed for single cell-level prediction. Given the well-established link between transcriptomic and metabolomic profiles, leveraging single cell transcriptomics data to predict single cell fluxome is not only feasible but also an urgent task. In this study, we present FLUXestimator, an online platform for predicting metabolic fluxome and variations using single cell or general transcriptomics data of large sample-size. The FLUXestimator webserver implements a recently developed unsupervised approach called single cell flux estimation analysis (scFEA), which uses a new neural network architecture to estimate reaction rates from transcriptomics data. To the best of our knowledge, FLUXestimator is the first web-based tool dedicated to predicting cell-/sample-wise metabolic flux and metabolite variations using transcriptomics data of human, mouse and 15 other common experimental organisms. The FLUXestimator webserver is available at http://scFLUX.org/, and stand-alone tools for local use are available at https://github.com/changwn/scFEA. Our tool provides a new avenue for studying metabolic heterogeneity in diseases and has the potential to facilitate the development of new therapeutic strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zixuan Zhang
- College of Software, College of Computer Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China
- Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics and Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
| | - Haiqi Zhu
- Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics and Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
- Department of Computer Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
| | - Pengtao Dang
- Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics and Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
- Department of Electric Computer Engineering, Purdue University, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
| | - Jia Wang
- Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics and Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
- Department of Computer Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
| | - Wennan Chang
- Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics and Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
| | - Xiao Wang
- Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics and Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
- Department of Computer Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
| | - Norah Alghamdi
- Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics and Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
| | - Alex Lu
- Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics and Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
| | - Yong Zang
- Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics and Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
- Department of Biostatistics and Health Data Science, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
| | - Wenzhuo Wu
- Department of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
| | - Yijie Wang
- Department of Computer Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA
| | - Yu Zhang
- College of Software, College of Computer Science and Technology, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, China
- Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics and Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
| | - Sha Cao
- Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics and Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
- Department of Biostatistics and Health Data Science, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
| | - Chi Zhang
- Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics and Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA
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Yang G, Huang S, Hu K, Lu A, Yang J, Meroueh N, Dang P, Wang Y, Zhu H, Cao S, Zhang C. Flux estimation analysis systematically characterizes the metabolic shifts of the central metabolism pathway in human cancer. Front Oncol 2023; 13:1117810. [PMID: 37377905 PMCID: PMC10291142 DOI: 10.3389/fonc.2023.1117810] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2022] [Accepted: 05/02/2023] [Indexed: 06/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction Glucose and glutamine are major carbon and energy sources that promote the rapid proliferation of cancer cells. Metabolic shifts observed on cell lines or mouse models may not reflect the general metabolic shifts in real human cancer tissue. Method In this study, we conducted a computational characterization of the flux distribution and variations of the central energy metabolism and key branches in a pan-cancer analysis, including the glycolytic pathway, production of lactate, tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle, nucleic acid synthesis, glutaminolysis, glutamate, glutamine, and glutathione metabolism, and amino acid synthesis, in 11 cancer subtypes and nine matched adjacent normal tissue types using TCGA transcriptomics data. Result Our analysis confirms the increased influx in glucose uptake and glycolysis and decreased upper part of the TCA cycle, i.e., the Warburg effect, in almost all the analyzed cancer. However, increased lactate production and the second half of the TCA cycle were only seen in certain cancer types. More interestingly, we failed to detect significantly altered glutaminolysis in cancer tissues compared to their adjacent normal tissues. A systems biology model of metabolic shifts through cancer and tissue types is further developed and analyzed. We observed that (1) normal tissues have distinct metabolic phenotypes; (2) cancer types have drastically different metabolic shifts compared to their adjacent normal controls; and (3) the different shifts in tissue-specific metabolic phenotypes result in a converged metabolic phenotype through cancer types and cancer progression. Discussion This study strongly suggests the possibility of having a unified framework for studies of cancer-inducing stressors, adaptive metabolic reprogramming, and cancerous behaviors.
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Affiliation(s)
- Grace Yang
- Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States
- Carmel High School, Carmel, IN, United States
| | - Shaoyang Huang
- Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States
- Carmel High School, Carmel, IN, United States
| | - Kevin Hu
- Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States
- Carmel High School, Carmel, IN, United States
| | - Alex Lu
- Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States
- Park Tudor School, Indianapolis, IN, United States
| | - Jonathan Yang
- Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States
- Carmel High School, Carmel, IN, United States
| | - Noah Meroueh
- Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States
- Carmel High School, Carmel, IN, United States
| | - Pengtao Dang
- Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, Indianapolis, IN, United States
| | - Yijie Wang
- Department of Computer Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, United States
| | - Haiqi Zhu
- Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States
- Department of Computer Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, United States
| | - Sha Cao
- Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States
- Department of Biostatistics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States
| | - Chi Zhang
- Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States
- Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, United States
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8
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Blumenthal E, Mehta P. Geometry of ecological coexistence and niche differentiation. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2023:2023.04.21.537832. [PMID: 37131730 PMCID: PMC10153274 DOI: 10.1101/2023.04.21.537832] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/04/2023]
Abstract
A fundamental problem in ecology is to understand how competition shapes biodiversity and species coexistence. Historically, one important approach for addressing this question has been to analyze Consumer Resource Models (CRMs) using geometric arguments. This has led to broadly applicable principles such as Tilman's R* and species coexistence cones. Here, we extend these arguments by constructing a novel geometric framework for understanding species coexistence based on convex polytopes in the space of consumer preferences. We show how the geometry of consumer preferences can be used to predict species coexistence and enumerate ecologically-stable steady states and transitions between them. Collectively, these results constitute a qualitatively new way of understanding the role of species traits in shaping ecosystems within niche theory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emmy Blumenthal
- Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
| | - Pankaj Mehta
- Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
- Biological Design Center, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
- Faculty of Computing and Data Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA
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9
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García I, Chouaia B, Llabrés M, Simeoni M. Exploring the expressiveness of abstract metabolic networks. PLoS One 2023; 18:e0281047. [PMID: 36758030 PMCID: PMC9910719 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281047] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2022] [Accepted: 01/16/2023] [Indexed: 02/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Metabolism is characterised by chemical reactions linked to each other, creating a complex network structure. The whole metabolic network is divided into pathways of chemical reactions, such that every pathway is a metabolic function. A simplified representation of metabolism, which we call an abstract metabolic network, is a graph in which metabolic pathways are nodes and there is an edge between two nodes if their corresponding pathways share one or more compounds. The abstract metabolic network of a given organism results in a small network that requires low computational power to be analysed and makes it a suitable model to perform a large-scale comparison of organisms' metabolism. To explore the potentials and limits of such a basic representation, we considered a comprehensive set of KEGG organisms, represented through their abstract metabolic network. We performed pairwise comparisons using graph kernel methods and analyse the results through exploratory data analysis and machine learning techniques. The results show that abstract metabolic networks discriminate macro evolutionary events, indicating that they are expressive enough to capture key steps in metabolism evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Irene García
- Mathematics and Computer Science Department, University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, Spain
| | - Bessem Chouaia
- Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Informatica e Statistica, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Venice, Italy
| | - Mercè Llabrés
- Mathematics and Computer Science Department, University of the Balearic Islands, Palma, Spain
| | - Marta Simeoni
- Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Informatica e Statistica, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Venice, Italy
- European Centre for Living Technology (ECLT), Venice, Italy
- * E-mail:
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Ando Y, Tsukasaki M. [RANKL and periodontitis]. Nihon Yakurigaku Zasshi 2023; 158:263-268. [PMID: 37121710 DOI: 10.1254/fpj.22122] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/02/2023]
Abstract
Periodontal disease is characterized by inflammation of the periodontal tissue and subsequent destruction of the alveolar bone. It is one of the most common infectious diseases in humans, being the leading cause of tooth loss in adults. Recently, it has been shown that the receptor activator of NF-κB ligand (RANKL) produced by osteoblasts and periodontal ligament fibroblasts critically contributes to the bone destruction caused by periodontal disease. Activation of the immune system plays an important role in the induction of RANKL during periodontal inflammation. Here we discuss the molecular mechanisms of periodontal bone destruction by focusing on the osteoimmune molecule RANKL.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yutaro Ando
- Department of Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine, The University of Tokyo
- Department of Microbiology, Tokyo Dental College
| | - Masayuki Tsukasaki
- Department of Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine, The University of Tokyo
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Schwartzman JA. What can we learn from honey bees? eLife 2021; 10:72380. [PMID: 34463617 PMCID: PMC8456718 DOI: 10.7554/elife.72380] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/24/2021] [Accepted: 08/24/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
The Western honey bee provides a model system for studying how closely related species of bacteria are able to coexist in a single community.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julia A Schwartzman
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, United States
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