PREDICTION OF MICROBIAL COMMUNITY STABILITY THROUGH LORENZ CURVE: A POTENTIAL TOOL FOR MICROBIAL COMMUNITY STUDIES

Abstract

Microbial communities are organised, functionally active ecological units that are found widely spread in every ecosystem of the planet.  They hold a significant place in most of the ecosystems they reside.  This biological assemblage of microbial cells not only help in easy signalling between the microbial network for different metabolic activities but also in a way helps in rapid degradation of complex organic compounds into simpler inorganic ones.  Stabilisation of the microbial communities is important to maintain a healthy and metabolically and functionally active ecosystem. These microbial assemblages are under constant environmental stress that results in alterations of its structure and composition which ultimately hampers the stabilisation of the microbial community.  Functional diversity of the microbial community with significant functional evenness contributes extensively towards stabilisation of a particular microbial community.  The higher the functional evenness of a microbial community, the higher will be its stabilization potential.  The functional evenness of a particular microbial community is graphically represented by using Pareto-Lorenz curve.  The extent of divergence or convergence of the curve from the line of evenness, decides the structure and microbial composition of the particular microbial community.  This review focuses on the parameters that alter the structure and composition of a microbial community, the significance of stabilization and its measurement by the well known Lorenz curve.