Strengthening Insights in Microbial Ecological Networks from Theory to Applications

• Main Authors: Xiaofei Lv, Kankan Zhao, Ran Xue, Yuanhui Liu, Jianming Xu, Bin Ma
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Society for Microbiology 2019-05-01
• Series: mSystems
• Subjects: evaluation; inference; interpretation; microbial ecological network; microbial interactions; network science
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1128/mSystems.00124-19

Networks encode the interactions between the components in complex systems and play an essential role in understanding complex systems. Microbial ecological networks provide a system-level insight for comprehensively understanding complex microbial interactions, which play important roles in microbial community assembly.Networks encode the interactions between the components in complex systems and play an essential role in understanding complex systems. Microbial ecological networks provide a system-level insight for comprehensively understanding complex microbial interactions, which play important roles in microbial community assembly. However, microbial ecological networks are in their infancy of both network inference and biological interpretation. In this perspective, we articulate the theory gaps and limitations in building and interpreting microbial ecological networks, emphasize developing tools for evaluating the predicted microbial interaction relationships, and predict the potential applications of microbial ecological networks in the long run.