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Microbial ecology

Smooth functional landscapes in microcosms

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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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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