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Peer-reviewedCC BYPLoS Computational Biology

Eco-evolutionary dynamics lead to functionally robust and redundant communities

  • Lorenzo Fant1,2
  • Iuri Macocco1,2
  • Jacopo Grilli3
  1. 1International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Via Bonomea 265, 34136 Trieste, Italy
  2. 2International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Via Bonomea 265, 3436 Trieste, Italy
  3. 3The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Strada Costiera 11, 34014 Trieste, Italy
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Abstract

Microbial communities are taxonomically diverse and variable: species presence and abundances widely fluctuate over time, space, and even across biological replicates under controlled experimental conditions. However, environmental conditions exert strong selection on the traits of community members and their functions. Similar environmental conditions are expected to produce functionally similar communities. This environmental selection, combined with taxonomic variability, leads to the influential concept of functional redundancy - the idea that many species can perform the same function, allowing communities with different species compositions to maintain identical functional profiles. Despite the centrality of functional redundancy in microbial ecology, we lack a theoretical understanding of its origin. Here we study the eco-evolutionary dynamics of communities interacting through competition and cross-feeding. We show that eco-evolutionary trajectories rapidly converge to a "functional attractor" - a functional composition uniquely determined by environmental conditions. Taxonomic composition follows non-reproducible dynamics while being constrained by the conservation of functional composition. Our framework provides a theoretical foundation for understanding functional robustness and redundancy in microbial communities.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{fant2026ecoevolutionary,
  title = {{Eco-evolutionary dynamics lead to functionally robust and redundant communities}},
  author = {Lorenzo Fant and Iuri Macocco and Jacopo Grilli},
  journal = {PLoS Computational Biology},
  year = {2026},
  month = jul,
  doi = {10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014437},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014437},
  note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Eco-evolutionary dynamics lead to functionally robust and redundant communities
AU  - Lorenzo Fant
AU  - Iuri Macocco
AU  - Jacopo Grilli
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/07/21
JO  - PLoS Computational Biology
DO  - 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014437
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1014437
AB  - Microbial communities are taxonomically diverse and variable: species presence and abundances widely fluctuate over time, space, and even across biological replicates under controlled experimental conditions. However, environmental conditions exert strong selection on the traits of community members and their functions. Similar environmental conditions are expected to produce functionally similar communities. This environmental selection, combined with taxonomic variability, leads to the influential concept of functional redundancy - the idea that many species can perform the same function, allowing communities with different species compositions to maintain identical functional profiles. Despite the centrality of functional redundancy in microbial ecology, we lack a theoretical understanding of its origin. Here we study the eco-evolutionary dynamics of communities interacting through competition and cross-feeding. We show that eco-evolutionary trajectories rapidly converge to a "functional attractor" - a functional composition uniquely determined by environmental conditions. Taxonomic composition follows non-reproducible dynamics while being constrained by the conservation of functional composition. Our framework provides a theoretical foundation for understanding functional robustness and redundancy in microbial communities.
SN  - 1553-734X
SN  - 1553-7358
ER  -