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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2024.09.02.610774

Collective effects in the population growth of microbials

Camacho-Mateu, J.·Lampo, A.·Castro, M.·Cuesta, J. A.
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Abstract

We investigate the growth dynamics of microbial populations, challenging the conventional logistic model. By analyzing empirical data from various biomes, we demonstrate that microbial growth is better described by a generalized logistic model, the{theta} -logistic model. This accounts for different growth mechanisms and environmental fluctuations, leading to a generalized gamma distribution of abundance fluctuations. Our findings reveal that microbial growth is never sublinear, so they cannot endorse--at least in the microbial world--the recent proposal of this mechanism as a stability enhancer of highly diverse communities. These results have significant implications for understanding macroecological patterns and the stability of microbial ecosystems.

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Camacho-Mateu, J., Lampo, A., Castro, M., Cuesta, J. A.. 2024-09-03. Collective effects in the population growth of microbials. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.09.02.610774

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