Harcombe Lab

Associate Professor, Ecology, Evolution and Behavior
University of Minnesota

A metabolic approach to microbial community robustness

As we strive to manage critical microbial communities we must understand how these systems respond to perturbation. We use a combination of metabolic modeling and laboratory co-cultures to investigate how the physiology of cells determines the content, function and dynamics of microbial communities.

We have found that cross-feeding tends to stabilize species ratios, but makes community growth less robust to perturbations. We specifically investigate the impact of antibiotics, bacteriophage and mutations in a system in which Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica rely on each other for essential metabolites.

Our work suggests that metabolic interactions between species can have predictable impacts on both ecological and evolutionary responses to perturbation in microbial communities.

THURSDAY  I  OCT. 20 I  3:30-4:30 PM CST  I  HYBRID SEMINAR