Cross-Feedings, Competition, and Positive and Negative Synergies in a Four-Species Synthetic Community for Anaerobic Degradation of Cellulose to Methane
Dongyu Wang, Kristopher A. Hunt, Pieter Candry, Xuanyu Tao, Neil Q. Wofford, Jizhong Zhou, Michael J. McInerney, David A. Stahl, Ralph S. Tanner, Aifen Zhou, Mari K.H. Winkler, Chongle Pan
Abstract
between a sulfate reducing bacterium and a hydrogenotrophic methanogen. This validated our rational design of the interactions between microorganisms based on their metabolic roles. More interestingly, we also found positive and negative synergies as emergent properties of high-order microbial interactions among three or more microorganisms in cocultures. These microbial interactions can be quantitatively measured by adding and removing specific members. A community stoichiometric model was constructed to represent the fluxes in the community metabolic network. This study paved the way toward a more predictive understanding of the impact of environmental perturbations on microbial interactions sustaining geochemically significant processes in natural systems.