Figure 1 | The ISME Journal

Figure 1

From: Challenges in microbial ecology: building predictive understanding of community function and dynamics

Figure 1

Linking MC research questions with data and modelling. Research areas, plotted according to their complexity and temporal or spatial scale, form the link between data of different forms (magenta) and modelling formalisms (dark green). Pattern emergence (light green), that is, collective behaviour obtained by up-scaling from individual description to population level, can be predicted by modelling and tested experimentally. Abbreviations: DS, dynamical systems of deterministic, mechanistic nature, implemented as discrete or continuous time models (difference equations, ODEs); (d) FBA, (dynamic) flux balance analysis; SDS, stochastic dynamical systems, such as Markov chains, random walks, birth–death processes; IBM, individual-based models; PDE, partial differential equations, these are deterministic structured population models (for example, according to space or traits); diffusion processes, probabilistic counterparts of ODEs and PDEs.

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