@article{TEXTUAL,
      recid = {9621},
      author = {De Jesús Astacio, Luis Miguel and Prabhakara, Kaumudi H.  and Li, Zeqian and Mickalide, Harry and Kuehn, Seppe},
      title = {Closed microbial communities self-organize to persistently  cycle carbon},
      journal = {PNAS},
      address = {2021-11-05},
      number = {TEXTUAL},
      abstract = {Cycles of nutrients (N, P, etc.) and resources (C) are a  defining emergent feature of ecosystems. Cycling plays a  critical role in determining ecosystem structure at all  scales, from microbial communities to the entire biosphere.  Stable cycles are essential for ecosystem persistence  because they allow resources and nutrients to be  regenerated. Therefore, a central problem in ecology is  understanding how ecosystems are organized to sustain  robust cycles. Addressing this problem quantitatively has  proved challenging because of the difficulties associated  with manipulating ecosystem structure while measuring  cycling. We address this problem using closed microbial  ecosystems (CES), hermetically sealed microbial consortia  provided with only light. We develop a technique for  quantifying carbon cycling in hermetically sealed microbial  communities and show that CES composed of an alga and  diverse bacterial consortia self-organize to robustly cycle  carbon for months. Comparing replicates of diverse CES, we  find that carbon cycling does not depend strongly on the  taxonomy of the bacteria present. Moreover, despite strong  taxonomic differences, self-organized CES exhibit a  conserved set of metabolic capabilities. Therefore, an  emergent carbon cycle enforces metabolic but not taxonomic  constraints on ecosystem organization. Our study helps  establish closedmicrobial communities as model ecosystems  to study emergent function and persistence in replicate  systems while controlling community composition and the  environment. © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. All  rights reserved.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/9621},
}