RT Journal Article
T1 Microbial catabolic activities are naturally selected by metabolic energy harvest rate
A1 González Cabaleiro, Rebeca
A1 Ofiteru, Irina Dana
A1 Lema Rodicio, Juan Manuel
A1 Rodríguez, Jorge
K1 Microbial ecology
AB The fundamental trade-off between yield and rate of energy harvest per unit of substrate has been largely discussed as a main characteristic for microbial established cooperation or competition. In this study, this point is addressed by developing a generalized model that simulates competition between existing and not experimentally reported microbial catabolic activities defined only based on well-known biochemical pathways. No specific microbial physiological adaptations are considered, growth yield is calculated coupled to catabolism energetics and a common maximum biomass-specific catabolism rate (expressed as electron transfer rate) is assumed for all microbial groups. Under this approach, successful microbial metabolisms are predicted in line with experimental observations under the hypothesis of maximum energy harvest rate. Two microbial ecosystems, typically found in wastewater treatment plants, are simulated, namely: (i) the anaerobic fermentation of glucose and (ii) the oxidation and reduction of nitrogen under aerobic autotrophic (nitrification) and anoxic heterotrophic and autotrophic (denitrification) conditions. The experimentally observed cross feeding in glucose fermentation, through multiple intermediate fermentation pathways, towards ultimately methane and carbon dioxide is predicted. Analogously, two-stage nitrification (by ammonium and nitrite oxidizers) is predicted as prevailing over nitrification in one stage. Conversely, denitrification is predicted in one stage (by denitrifiers) as well as anammox (anaerobic ammonium oxidation). The model results suggest that these observations are a direct consequence of the different energy yields per electron transferred at the different steps of the pathways. Overall, our results theoretically support the hypothesis that successful microbial catabolic activities are selected by an overall maximum energy harvest rate
PB Springer Nature
YR 2015
FD 2015
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/24284
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/24284
LA eng
NO González-Cabaleiro, R., Ofiţeru, I., Lema, J. et al. Microbial catabolic activities are naturally selected by metabolic energy harvest rate. ISME J 9, 2630–2641 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2015.69
NO We acknowledge the support of Masdar Institute of Science and Technology under the MI/MIT joint research program grant 11WAMA1 and Xunta de Galicia under a predoctoral grant (Plan I2C 2011/2015). The authors from University of Santiago de Compostela belong to the Galician Competitive Research Group GRC 2013-032, programme co-funded by FEDER
DS Minerva
RD 1 may 2026