Emergent behaviors in microbial communities
Physics of systems around us are often emergent, shaped by not only the fundamental constituents but their interactions, structures, and symmetries at larger scales. Microbial communities, which play indispensable roles in nature, are complex active systems that naturally pushes us to the unexplored...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2023
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/150699 |
| _version_ | 1826217308423454720 |
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| author | Lee, Hyunseok |
| author2 | Gore, Jeff |
| author_facet | Gore, Jeff Lee, Hyunseok |
| author_sort | Lee, Hyunseok |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Physics of systems around us are often emergent, shaped by not only the fundamental constituents but their interactions, structures, and symmetries at larger scales. Microbial communities, which play indispensable roles in nature, are complex active systems that naturally pushes us to the unexplored frontier of emergent phenomena. During my PhD, I studied how some behaviors of microbial communities can be simple at emergent level despite the underlying complexity at microscopic level. First, I demonstrated that competition for resources may lead to the experimentally observed simplicity in community assembly. Even without microscopic information on the traits of microbes, trio and larger community assembly is often predictable from collections of pairwise competitions. Second, I demonstrated that slow mutants can take over expanding fronts and the resulting large-scale spatial pattern can be predicted without microscopic information. Overall, my works illustrate that, beyond qualitative explanations, we can make precise predictions for the behaviors of microbial communities without any information about microscopic details of the systems. This lens of emergent behavior allows us to discover simple descriptions of microbial communities at large scales unhindered by their complexities at small scales. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T17:01:22Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | mit-1721.1/150699 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T17:01:22Z |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| publisher | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1506992023-05-16T03:01:00Z Emergent behaviors in microbial communities Lee, Hyunseok Gore, Jeff Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics Physics of systems around us are often emergent, shaped by not only the fundamental constituents but their interactions, structures, and symmetries at larger scales. Microbial communities, which play indispensable roles in nature, are complex active systems that naturally pushes us to the unexplored frontier of emergent phenomena. During my PhD, I studied how some behaviors of microbial communities can be simple at emergent level despite the underlying complexity at microscopic level. First, I demonstrated that competition for resources may lead to the experimentally observed simplicity in community assembly. Even without microscopic information on the traits of microbes, trio and larger community assembly is often predictable from collections of pairwise competitions. Second, I demonstrated that slow mutants can take over expanding fronts and the resulting large-scale spatial pattern can be predicted without microscopic information. Overall, my works illustrate that, beyond qualitative explanations, we can make precise predictions for the behaviors of microbial communities without any information about microscopic details of the systems. This lens of emergent behavior allows us to discover simple descriptions of microbial communities at large scales unhindered by their complexities at small scales. Ph.D. 2023-05-15T19:33:22Z 2023-05-15T19:33:22Z 2023-02 2023-05-10T19:59:46.931Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/150699 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright MIT http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| spellingShingle | Lee, Hyunseok Emergent behaviors in microbial communities |
| title | Emergent behaviors in microbial communities |
| title_full | Emergent behaviors in microbial communities |
| title_fullStr | Emergent behaviors in microbial communities |
| title_full_unstemmed | Emergent behaviors in microbial communities |
| title_short | Emergent behaviors in microbial communities |
| title_sort | emergent behaviors in microbial communities |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/150699 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT leehyunseok emergentbehaviorsinmicrobialcommunities |