Journal
SCIENCE
Volume 336, Issue 6086, Pages 1255-1262Publisher
AMER ASSOC ADVANCEMENT SCIENCE
DOI: 10.1126/science.1224203
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Funding
- NIH [R01GM095385, DP1OD000964]
- Doris Duke Charitable Trust
- Stanford University
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The human-microbial ecosystem plays a variety of important roles in human health and disease. Each person can be viewed as an island-like patch of habitat occupied by microbial assemblages formed by the fundamental processes of community ecology: dispersal, local diversification, environmental selection, and ecological drift. Community assembly theory, and metacommunity theory in particular, provides a framework for understanding the ecological dynamics of the human microbiome, such as compositional variability within and between hosts. We explore three core scenarios of human microbiome assembly: development in infants, representing assembly in previously unoccupied habitats; recovery from antibiotics, representing assembly after disturbance; and invasion by pathogens, representing assembly in the context of invasive species. Judicious application of ecological theory may lead to improved strategies for restoring and maintaining the microbiota and the crucial health-associated ecosystem services that it provides.
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