Protein ensembles link genotype to phenotype

Despite the high bacterial abundance found in fertile soil, bacteria occupy a small fraction of soil surfaces and often form hotspots with disproportionate contributions to biogenic fluxes. As soil opacity and complexity limit detailed observations of hotspots, Borer et al. developed a modeling platform to enable systematic study of dense multispecies bacterial communities within a structured habitat resembling (not limited to) soil.

Plant cells are surrounded by a rigid wall that prevents cell displacements and rearrangements as in animal tissues. It has long been recognized that cell growth relies on the competition between osmosis that tends to attract water into the cells and wall mechanics that resist it, but this interplay has never been fully explored in a multicellular model. The goal of this work is to analyze the theoretical consequences of this coupling.