Microbial populations hardly ever grow logistically and never sublinearly Articles uri icon

publication date

  • April 2025

start page

  • 044404

end page

  • 044412

issue

  • 4

volume

  • 111

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

  • 2470-0045

Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)

  • 2470-0053

abstract

  • We investigate the growth dynamics of microbial populations, challenging the conventional logistic model. By analyzing empirical data from various biomes, we demonstrate that microbial growth is better described by a generalized logistic model, the ¿-logistic model. This accounts for different growth mechanisms and environmental fluctuations, leading to a generalized gamma distribution of abundance fluctuations. Our findings reveal that microbial growth is never sublinear, so they cannot endorse - at least in the microbial world - the recent proposal of this mechanism as a stability enhancer of highly diverse communities. These results have significant implications for understanding macroecological patterns and the stability of microbial ecosystems.

subjects

  • Mathematics
  • Physics