Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering Commons^™

Historical Contingency In Microbial Resilience To Hydrologic Perturbations, Hyun-Seob Song, James C. Stegen, Emily B. Graham, Timothy D. Scheibe

Department of Biological Systems Engineering: Papers and Publications

Development of reliable biogeochemical models requires a mechanistic consideration of microbial interactions with hydrology. Microbial response to and its recovery after hydrologic perturbations (i.e., resilience) is a critical component to understand in this regard, but generally difficult to predict because the impacts of future events can be dependent on the history of perturbations (i.e., historical contingency). Fundamental issues underlying this phenomenon include how microbial resilience to hydrologic perturbations is influenced by historical contingency and how their relationships vary depending on the characteristics of microbial functions. To answer these questions, we considered a simple microbial community composed of two species that …