Analysing data from thousands of microbial communities, the authors show that these communities cluster at different ends of the spectrum between resource competition and metabolic cooperation. Cooperative communities tend to have smaller genomes and multiple auxotrophies, whereas competitive communities have larger genomes, overlapping niches and a high potential for antimicrobial activity.
- Daniel Machado
- Oleksandr M. Maistrenko
- Kiran R. Patil
