Sivan Pearl Mizrahi

Congratulations to Zuckerman Faculty Scholar Sivan Pearl Mizrahi  on  the recent publication of a study, Structured interactions explain the absence of keystone species in synthetic microcosms,  in September’s  ISME Journal. 

With her team at  the Pearl Mizrahi Lab at Hebrew University’s Institute of Biochemistry, Food Sciences and Nutrition, Dr. Pearl Mizrahi discovered that certain marine microbes  cooperate in surprising ways: they share “public goods” (nutrients, enzymes, protective molecules), enabling the community as a whole to survive better in harsh conditions. This helps explain how microbial communities remain stable and resilient even when individual cells might “cheat” or take advantage of others.

Understanding this cooperative dynamic will  help better manage ecosystems, improve bioremediation, and design more robust microbial communities in biotechnology, agriculture, or medicine.

Abstract:
In complex ecosystems, the loss of certain species can trigger a cascade of secondary extinctions and invasions. However, understanding the prevalence of these critical “keystone” species and the factors influencing their emergence remains limited. To address these questions, we experimentally assembled microcosms from 16 marine bacterial species and found that multiple extinctions and invasions were exceedingly rare upon removal of a species from the initial inoculation… Results suggest that the natural emergence of structured interactions may provide community resilience to extinctions.