Microbiome engineering is increasingly being employed as a solution to challenges in health, agriculture, and climate. Often manipulation involves inoculation of new microbes designed to improve function into a preexisting microbial community. Despite, increased efforts in microbiome engineering inoculants frequently fail to establish and/or confer long-lasting modifications on ecosystem function. We posit that one underlying cause of these shortfalls is the failure to consider barriers to organism establishment. This is a key challenge and focus of macroecology research, specifically invasion biology and restoration ecology. We adopt a framework from invasion biology that summarizes establishment barriers in three categories: (1) propagule pressure, (2) environmental filtering, and (3) biotic interactions factors. We suggest that biotic interactions is the most neglected factor in microbiome engineering research, and we recommend a number of actions to accelerate engineering solutions.
Albright, Michaeline B. N., et al. "Solutions in microbiome engineering: prioritizing barriers to organism establishment." The ISME Journal, vol. 16, no. 2, Aug. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41396-021-01088-5
Albright, Michaeline B. N., Louca, Stilianos, Winkler, Daniel E., et al., "Solutions in microbiome engineering: prioritizing barriers to organism establishment," The ISME Journal 16, no. 2 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41396-021-01088-5
@article{osti_1814528,
author = {Albright, Michaeline B. N. and Louca, Stilianos and Winkler, Daniel E. and Feeser, Kelli L. and Haig, Sarah-Jane and Whiteson, Katrine L. and Emerson, Joanne B. and Dunbar, John},
title = {Solutions in microbiome engineering: prioritizing barriers to organism establishment},
annote = {Abstract Microbiome engineering is increasingly being employed as a solution to challenges in health, agriculture, and climate. Often manipulation involves inoculation of new microbes designed to improve function into a preexisting microbial community. Despite, increased efforts in microbiome engineering inoculants frequently fail to establish and/or confer long-lasting modifications on ecosystem function. We posit that one underlying cause of these shortfalls is the failure to consider barriers to organism establishment. This is a key challenge and focus of macroecology research, specifically invasion biology and restoration ecology. We adopt a framework from invasion biology that summarizes establishment barriers in three categories: (1) propagule pressure, (2) environmental filtering, and (3) biotic interactions factors. We suggest that biotic interactions is the most neglected factor in microbiome engineering research, and we recommend a number of actions to accelerate engineering solutions.},
doi = {10.1038/s41396-021-01088-5},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1814528},
journal = {The ISME Journal},
issn = {ISSN 1751-7362},
number = {2},
volume = {16},
place = {United Kingdom},
publisher = {Oxford University Press},
year = {2021},
month = {08}}