This indirectly takes into account competition between species, barriers to distribution, and other historical factors a postori, which cannot be physiologically predicted. Niche models yield the realized (actual) niche, rather than the fundamental (theoretical) niche predicted by process-based models (Guisan and

Zimmermann, 2000; Morin and Thuiller, 2009). These models can underestimate complex biotic interactions and do not necessarily allow for varying distributions of the same organisms in different environmental conditions. Therefore, a myriad of tools exist to model the dynamics of microbial community structure. However, few if any have attempted to predict the relative abundance of the many thousands of potential species observed in complex systems (Caporaso et al., 2011a, b, c). One particular example of relevant modeling at Selleck RG7422 this scale is for animal-associated microbial communities. Variation in the human gut microbiome has been linked

to human health (Burcelin et al., 2011; Marchesi, 2011; Wu et al., 2011). In addition, microbial communities that live within other organisms, such the termite gut or the cow rumen, have potential applications in deriving biofuels from lignocellulosic plant materials (Hongoh, 2010; Hess et al., 2011). Ecosystem models of microbial communities span large environments, up to the entire

biosphere. The one ocean model (O’dor et al., 2009) represents the global marine ecosystem at the largest possible scale: as a single circular ocean with a 10 000-km Dapagliflozin price radius and a uniform 4 km depth. This model system is used MRIP to explore the potential for biodiversity dispersal. In the case of bacteria, a single ‘species’ could transverse the whole ocean in only 10 000 years. However, there are complications to such a simple theoretical model, such as barriers to dispersal. While continents may be the most obvious, currents are just as potent. The MIT General Circulation Model (Marshall et al., 1997) is a mathematical description of the motions that control oceanic and atmospheric currents. Combining these physical models with microbial diversity models, in which a number of microbial phenotypes are initialized and their interaction with the modeled environment determines their relative fitness, should enable accurate prediction of both dispersal, limits of dispersal, and species fitness (Bruggeman & Kooijman, 2007; Follows et al., 2007; Merico et al., 2009). For example, using diversity-based models with the high-resolution general circulation model (Marshall et al., 1997) enables the generation of several dozen parameterized phytoplankton models (Follows et al., 2007; Dutkiewicz et al., 2009).