{"title":"When and why a microbial community might collapse","description":"<p>Researchers in ISB\u2019s Baliga Lab have developed a framework for assessing the \u201chealth\u201d of a microbial community through a stress test that enables them to ask when and why microbial communities collapse under different environmental conditions. The study determined that while microbes are equipped to respond to environmental changes, when pushed to the extreme under rapidly fluctuating conditions, the energetic cost of adapting becomes a burden and is unsustainable, leading to collapse.<\/p>","url":"https:\/\/systemsbiology.org\/news\/2017\/03\/20\/isb-scientists-discovered-microbial-community-might-collapse\/"}