A synthetic microbial Daisyworld: planetary regulation in the test tube

Author:

Maull Victor12,Pla Mauri Jordi12,Conde Pueyo Nuria23,Solé Ricard124ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Psg Lluis Companys, Barcelona, Spain

2. Complex Systems Lab, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona 08003, Spain

3. EMBL Barcelona, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Barcelona 08003, Spain

4. Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA

Abstract

The idea that the Earth system self-regulates in a habitable state was proposed in the 1970s by James Lovelock, who conjectured that life plays a self-regulatory role on a planetary-level scale. A formal approach to such hypothesis was presented afterwards under a toy model known as the Daisyworld. The model showed how such life-geosphere homeostasis was an emergent property of the system, where two species with different properties adjusted their populations to the changing external environment. So far, this ideal world exists only as a mathematical or computational construct, but it would be desirable to have a real, biological implementation of Lovelock’s picture beyond our one biosphere. Inspired by the exploration of synthetic ecosystems using genetic engineering and recent cell factory designs, here we propose a possible implementation for a microbial Daisyworld. This includes: (i) an explicit proposal for an engineered design of a two-strain consortia, using pH as the external, abiotic control parameter and (ii) several theoretical and computational case studies including two, three and multiple species assemblies. The special alternative implementations and their implications in other synthetic biology scenarios, including ecosystem engineering, are outlined.

Funder

Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca

Publisher

The Royal Society

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