Can mathematics help us understand the complexity of our microbiome?

(Carnegie Institution for Science) In humans, the gut microbiome is an ecosystem of hundreds to thousands of microbial species living within the gastrointestinal tract, influencing health and even longevity. As interest in studying the microbiome continues to increase, understanding this complexity will give us predictive power to engineer it. A research team led by Carnegie's Will Ludington built a rigorous mathematical framework that describes the ecology of a microbiome coupled to its host.