Itzhak Mizrahi

Abstract Microbial coexistence in complex communities requires mechanisms that minimize competition and optimize resource use. However, the mechanisms by which these ecological strategies are executed remain poorly understood. Here we show that bacteria modulate protein abundance in response to specific community members, reducing functional redundancy and promoting metabolic complementarity.

Abstract The genus Clostridium is a large and diverse group within the Bacillota (formerly Firmicutes), whose members can encode useful complex traits such as solvent production, gas-fermentation, and lignocellulose breakdown. We describe 270 genome sequences of solventogenic clostridia from a comprehensive industrial strain collection assembled by Professor David Jones that includes 194 C. beijerinckii, 57 C. saccharobutylicum, 4 C. saccharoperbutylacetonicum, 5 C. butyricum, 7 C.

Study system and initial data processing We used an existing data set of plasmids sequenced from the rumens of 22 individual Israeli Holstein dairy cows housed on the same farm [30]. This experimental setup includes a typical and standard husbandry diet applied in multiple farms worldwide for intensive farming regimes. This allowed us to have consistent conditions with no known confounding factors.