From competition to cooperation: Paradigm shifts in trait-based ecology change our understanding of the processes that structure microbial communities

CLAUDIA PICCINI; MELINA DEVERCELLI; LILEN YEMA; ANGEL SEGURA; MARCELA BASTIDAS NAVARRO; MARÍA BELÉN SATHICQ; GABRIELA MARTINEZ DE LA ESCALERA; ANA MARTINEZ GOICOCHEA; MARIANA RODRIGUES AMARAL DA COSTA; INÉS O´FARRELL; ENRIQUE LARA; CARLA KRUK

ECOLOGÍA AUSTRAL

ASOCIACIÓN ARGENTINA DE ECOLOGÍA

Lugar: Buenos Aires; Año: 2023

0327-5477

Prevailing social, economic and political ideas and paradigms constitute the lens through which scientists observe, assess, and understand the world. This affects how we interpret and understand the mechanisms governing the interaction between organisms and has led, in most cases, to dominant explanations and paradigms that are difficult to overthrow. This is the case of ecological theory, whose perspectives have followed the rationale of societal changes. From the industrial revolution to very recently, species competition for resources was regarded as one of the main drivers of species interactions. Nowadays, a new and rapidly growing way of thinking emerged, fueled by the high sequencing capacities, ultra-resolution microscopy and the slowly growing number of different social and gender perspectives participating in ecological studies: that living beings are not just single organisms interacting with other single organisms, but complex communities of macro- and microorganisms living and evolving together. The information emerging from this field is bringing new light to previously disregarded aspects of the ecological interactions that, in our opinion, will change the main paradigms in ecology. As members of a South American scientific network of Aquatic Microbial Ecology (MicroSudAqua), here we propose to explore alternative explanations for ecological observations, searching for new traits accounting for cooperation between microorganisms as a fundamental evolutionary and ecological strategy.