MIT researchers created a formula to predict the success of invasive species, based on studies of soil bacteria. This could help with environmental conservation and treatments like probiotics. The research, supported by the Schmidt Polymath Award and the Sloan Foundation, will be tested in real-world settings, including forests and the human gut, according to MIT News.
Jiliang Hu, lead author of a new study, explained, "People eat a lot of probiotics, but many of them can never invade our gut microbiome at all, because if you introduce it, it does not necessarily mean that it can grow and colonize and benefit your health." The research found that bacterial communities with high fluctuations were more open to invasion, while stable, less diverse communities resisted new species. They also discovered that the survival fraction, or the diversity ratio between local and regional species, helped predict an ecosystem’s vulnerability. Jeff Gore, senior author, added, "It would be exciting to study whether the local and regional diversity could be used to predict susceptibility to invasion in natural communities," as stated by MIT News.
The research explores the "priority effect," where the timing of a species' arrival affects its success, especially when interspecies interactions are strong. "Under a strong interaction regime, we found the invader has some disadvantage because it arrived later," said Hu. When interactions are weak, the order of arrival doesn't matter. This finding has practical applications for managing ecosystems and human microbiomes, helping us understand how to introduce beneficial species and control invasives, both in nature and in our bodies, as reported by MIT News.
