Transition from global stability to multiple attractors in microcosms

Transition from global stability to multiple attractors in microcosms | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Biological Sciences - Article Transition from global stability to multiple attractors in microcosms Jeff Gore, Jiliang Hu, You He, Matthieu Barbier, Jinyeop Song, and 1 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7669527/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Species-rich microbial communities have recently become an experimental proving ground for a long-standing theoretical idea – that ecological dynamics can emerge predictably from the multiplicity of species interactions, rather than from specific biological traits or functions. This theoretical picture predicts characteristic patterns relating community diversity, stability and invasions – patterns that have recently been observed in microcosms. However, one key aspect of this picture that was not directly tested is the potential for each community to exhibit multistability, a dynamical property whose ecological consequences range from history dependence to catastrophic regime shifts. Here we assembled ~100 bacterial communities, manipulating their species pool and interaction strength, and tested each community’s dynamics from various initial species abundances. Our experiments confirm a central theoretical prediction: as species pool size and mean interaction strength increase there is a transition from a single globally stable equilibrium to a multiplicity of attractors, where the same community can reach multiple stable or fluctuating attractors under identical environmental conditions. Besides this complexity-driven transition, we also uncovered a biologically driven mechanism for alternative stable states: multi-species communities formed two distinct clusters, an acidic regime with low biomass and an alkaline regime with high biomass, suggesting the possibility of abrupt shifts in community-level functioning. Some communities reached both acidic and alkaline regimes while also exhibiting compositional multistability within a given regime, a phenomenon we term “hybrid multistability”. Understanding high-diversity ecosystems therefore requires a novel perspective combining complexity-driven phenomena with key large-scale biological drivers. Biological sciences/Ecology/Microbial ecology Biological sciences/Systems biology/Multistability Biological sciences/Systems biology/Complexity Physical sciences/Physics/Biological physics Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Supplementary Files Supplementaryinformation.pdf Supplementary information Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7669527","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Biological Sciences - Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":525868137,"identity":"3b949b49-92a1-4286-8f95-ea66112540d0","order_by":0,"name":"Jeff 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