Fundamentals of Microbial Community Resistance and Resilience

Microbial communities are at the heart of all ecosystems, and yet microbial community behavior in disturbed environments remains difficult to measure and predict. Understanding the drivers of microbial community stability, including resistance (insensitivity to disturbance) and resilience (the rate of recovery after disturbance) is important for predicting community response to disturbance. Here, we provide an overview of the concepts of stability that are relevant for microbial communities. First, we highlight insights from ecology that are useful for defining and measuring stability. To determine whether general disturbance responses exist for microbial communities, we next examine representative studies…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: 0842441, 0731913, 1041557
• UD
  U.S. Department of Energy
• UD
  U.S. Department of Agriculture

  Awards: 67019, 2011-67019-30225
• GA
  Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
• LS
  Life Sciences Research Foundation
• SF
  Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas
• V
  Vetenskapsrådet
• NI
  National Institutes of Health
• NI
  National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• OO
  Office of Science