Microbacterial modelling across the scales: From single cells to inter-kingdom communities

Biology is inherently multi-scale, with complex properties emerging at different length scales. Environmental changes, such as nutrient availability or inter-species interactions, can alter cell behavior and create feedback across these scales. Single-cell properties, such as the cell phenotype, determine how a cell responds to environmental perturbations and grow, which are further influenced by inter-cell processes. Competitive systems, such as phage viruses and bacteria, engage in evolutionary arms races to infect or defend against each other. The community spatial structure can provide advantages, like managing heterogeneous nutrient resources or inhibit antimicrobial attacks. Further structures such as the fungal mycelia can form complex structures reflective of their environment, for example mycelia can serve as substrates for bacterial biofilms and facilitate bacterial transpsort across extended environments. Connecting inferences across these scales is challenging. In this talk, we present a mosaic of studies across various length scales and species, demonstrating the foundational role of thermodynamics and community interactions in shaping community structure and function.