Abstract. Microbial communities experience environmental fluctuations across timescales from rapid changes in moisture, temperature, or light levels to lon

Heterotrophic bacteria and archaea (“heteroprokaryotes”) drive global carbon cycling, but how to quantitatively organize their functional complexity remains unclear. We generated a global-scale unders...

Bacterial colonies growing on solid surfaces can exhibit robust expansion kinetics, with constant radial growth and saturating vertical expansion. Here, the authors use modeling and experiments to show that colony growth dynamics are driven by an interplay of mechanical constraints and nutrient gradients arising from obligatory metabolic processes.

Nature Microbiology - A genetically engineered microbial symbiosis based on synthetic auxotrophy is created, with potential implications as a biocontainment strategy.

The metabolic activity of microbial communities is essential for host and environmental health, influencing processes from immune regulation to bioremediation. Given this importance, the rational desi...