Biological waste treatment technology is currently the world’s largest application process, and its functional achievement mainly relies on complex microbial communities. However, the microbial system in such engineered ecosystems has been considered a “black box.” Over the past decade, with the development of molecular biotechnology and next-generation sequencing technologies, the exploration of such “black boxes” has gradually deepened. In particular, the role of ecological forces in uncovering and regulating microbial communities has been largely recognized and has provided novel insights into the link between microbial communities and engineering objectives. However, the study of community ecology in engineered ecosystems is still in its early infancy and faces grand challenges in bridging engineering principles with microbial ecology theory. In this review, we discuss recent advances in the understanding of microbial community behavior in biological waste treatment systems, including biodiversity and its influencing factors, the role of neglected rare species, microbial interactions, and community assembly mechanisms. We emphasize the importance of these ecological perspectives in revealing and regulating microbial communities and functions, such as the enhancement of contaminant removal and operational stability in engineered ecosystems. In particular, cross-validation of the microbial community analysis results is necessary to yield valid real information to guide the improvement and stability of engineering ecosystem performance. Multi-omics approaches and synthetic community biology are preferred ways to link ecological theory and engineering objectives.

中文翻译：

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重新审视工程生态系统功能与微生物群落之间的联系：从生态角度进行综述


生物垃圾处理技术是目前世界上最大的应用工艺，其功能实现主要依赖于复杂的微生物群落。然而，这种工程生态系统中的微生物系统被认为是一个“黑匣子”。近十年来，随着分子生物技术和新一代测序技术的发展，对此类“黑匣子”的探索逐渐深入。特别是，生态力在发现和调节微生物群落方面的作用已得到广泛认可，并为微生物群落与工程目标之间的联系提供了新的见解。然而，工程生态系统中群落生态学的研究仍处于起步阶段，在将工程原理与微生物生态学理论联系起来方面面临着巨大的挑战。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了生物废物处理系统中微生物群落行为的最新进展，包括生物多样性及其影响因素、被忽视的稀有物种的作用、微生物相互作用和群落组装机制。我们强调这些生态观点在揭示和调节微生物群落和功能方面的重要性，例如增强工程生态系统中的污染物去除和运行稳定性。特别是，需要对微生物群落分析结果进行交叉验证，以产生有效的真实信息来指导工程生态系统性能的改善和稳定。多组学方法和合成群落生物学是将生态理论和工程目标联系起来的首选方法。