A cross section of a field is shown with different soil moisture levels. On the right side, plant growth is constrained due to low soil moisture levels. An example of a measurable phenotype is shown (CO2, corresponding to soil respiration), which is the result of combined metabolic interactions between soil microbes and plants. Call out circles correspond to a microscale view of soil consortia residing in spatially discrete soil aggregates. Connectivity between consortia is determined by the extent of the pore volume that is water filled and available for diffusion of chemical signals and metabolites. Bacterial (purple symbols) interactions within consortia are designated with white arrows. Fungal hyphae (green filaments) may bridge spatially discrete consortia. Soil viruses (orange symbols) also play a yet undefined role in regulating the soil metaphenome. Lower panel illustrates different types of models applicable to defining the soil metaphenome; from left to right: biochemical reaction networks squares correspond to bacterial (purple) or fungal (green) metabolites, interspecies interaction networks, and interkingdom interactions.

See...

• K.Z. Coyte, J. Schluter, K.R. Foster (2015) "The ecology of the microbiome: networks, competition and stability", Science, 350: 663–666 [Used models to show that cooperation between community members in host-associated microbiomes reduces community stability, whereas competition stabilized communities.]
• C.S. Henry, H.C. Bernstein, P. Weisenhorn, R.C. Taylor, J.-Y. Lee, J. Zucker, H.-S. Song (2016) "Microbial community metabolic modeling: a community data-driven network reconstruction" J Cell Physiol, 231 23390–32345.