Fig. 1: Community composition to measure evolutionary patterns in microorganisms.
From: Community conservatism is widespread across microbial phyla and environments
a, The leaf shape of oak trees is a morphological feature that shows a strong phylogenetic signal. Closely related species have similar leaf shapes, whereas more distantly related species have larger differences. b, In bacteria, there are also indications that traits are phylogenetically conserved, as in ref. 28. However, we often do not know enough about the morphology or physiology of these organisms, as most of them remain uncultured. c, We propose community conservatism as an alternative approach: instead of comparing bacterial species directly in terms of physiology or morphology, we assume that if they are related (and thus potentially have a similar function and occupy a similar ecological niche), then their community composition will also be similar. Images in a adapted with permission from ref. 6, PNAS.
