The architecture and dynamics of microbial interaction networks in food model ecosystems

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Microorganisms are the most abundant and diverse form of life on earth. They form complex communities that perform essential functions in various ecosystems, which benefit the environment, agriculture and our health. Interactions between microorganisms may be crucial to these ecosystems functions, if for example a function depends on the presence of complementary species. Therefore, understanding microbial communities at the systems level, that is considering the interplay between microorganisms, is a major challenge, especially for food production where controlling microbial contamination is critical. The meat industry in particular is in dire need of new microbial control strategies as over 20 % of the 263 million tonnes of meat produced in the world each year is thrown away partly because of microbial spoilage. Taking advantage of novel technologies involving high throughput sequencing and systems biology approaches, this project aims at characterizing the interactions between members of a meat model microbial community with the ultimate goal of helping envision new microbial control strategies. The meat environment sustains a wide diversity of microorganisms and represents a tractable system of reduced complexity well suited for experimental microbial community experiments. A first output of the project will be to describe the structure of the microbial community and the contribution of each member to community assembly and functions, demonstrating the feasibility of experimentally manipulating complex microbiota in vitro. A second output will be to systematically map the relationships between members and explain their role in community properties, thus expanding our system level understanding of microbial communities. A third output will be to use our model and interaction network to predict the effects of biotic and abiotic antimicrobial treatments on meat microbial spoilage. Research efforts to decipher mechanisms underlying microbial community ecology will be welcome in coming years to establish new microbial control strategies to reduce waste of meat and eventually other food products. Thus, this program will ultimately benefit the Canadian food industry and its consumers by taking a step forward towards sustainability and by helping maintain Canada at the forefront of food science R&D.