Figure 2
(a) The human large intestine and the rumen and caecum in herbivorous animals harbour dense MCs dominated by anaerobic microbes that cross-feed metabolites extensively. In recent models, these are approximated by a small number of functional groups (Muñoz-Tamayo et al., 2010; Kettle et al., 2015). (b) Comparison of this model to a fermenter experiment with a pH shift from 5.5. to 6.5 after 9 days for metabolic products (dashed lines are experiment data, solid lines are model results). (c) Comparison of temporal species dynamics between model predictions and data. The experimental data consists of phylogenetic groups (16S rRNA gene sequencing), simulations refer to functional groups; approximate correspondence between the two is indicated by colour coding (for example, Lachnospiraceae equivalent to B5 and B8, shown in green, Bacteroides belonging to B1 shown in blue and purple).
