Applications of Engineered Synthetic Ecosystems

A major goal in synthetic biology is to construct biological systems with robust and controllable behavior and functionality. Over recent decades, biologists have tried to deconvolve the complexity of life by elucidating key genetic and regulatory determinants, with the hope of eventually engineering biological systems in more predictable ways. Genetic circuits have now been designed and rewired with relative ease to produce interesting and useful cellular phenotypes. A natural extension of this bioengineering framework is the combination of different cells into groups and artificial consortia of increasing complexity. This approach is important, since heterogeneous populations can often outperform homogeneous populations of genetically identical individuals in many tasks that require more sophisticated divisions of labor. Natural microbial consortia, for example, are able to degrade complex substrates more efficiently than any single member can. Furthermore, mixed populations are more robust to environmental variations, and can potentially be reprogrammed in modular ways. However, building higher-order biological systems relies on improving our understanding of the ecology of dynamic multicomponent communities, both natural and synthetic. The area of synthetic ecology is poised to grow in this endeavor.