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Microbial ecology

Smooth functional landscapes in microcosms

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Inspired by systems biology, a statistical model now shows that low-order ecological interactions — which are inferable from relatively limited species-presence datasets — can successfully predict functional performance across synthetic microcosms.

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Fig. 1: Functional landscapes for proteins are typically rugged, whereas for synthetic microbial communities they are typically smooth.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Physique, Ecole normale supérieure, Université PSL, CNRS, Paris, France

    Daniel R. Amor

  2. IAME, Université de Paris Cité, Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, INSERM, Paris, France

    Daniel R. Amor

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  1. Daniel R. Amor
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Correspondence to Daniel R. Amor.

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Amor, D.R. Smooth functional landscapes in microcosms. Nat Ecol Evol 7, 1754–1755 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02214-6

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