From a parts list to assembly instructions and an operating manual: how small host models can re-write microbiome theory
Affiliation:
1. Biology Department, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States;2. Department of Embryology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Baltimore, MD, United States
Abstract:
Small hosts provide tractable, semi-complex microbiome models to define rules of multispecies communities that may apply in higher diversity systems. Conceptualized in terms of microbial diversity in space and time, the user-friendly worm, fly and fish models let researchers home in on biologically defined systems of ∼1–10 microbial species in a genetic model host. The diagram shows how interaction networks give rise to simpler dynamics at lower diversity as well as how spatial distributions can be difficult to define at high diversity. The placement of the model hosts on the plot shows their relative simplicity with respect to the mammalian models but is not intended to indicate differences between the small hosts.
