Metabolism is the complex network of chemical reactions occurring within every cell and organism, maintaining life, mediating ecosystem processes and affecting Earth’s climate. Experiments and models of microbial metabolism often focus on one specific scale, overlooking the connectivity between molecules, cells and ecosystems. Here we highlight quantitative metabolic principles that exhibit commonalities across scales, which we argue could help to achieve an integrated perspective on microbial life. Mass, electron and energy balance provide quantitative constraints on their flow within metabolic networks, organisms and ecosystems, shaping how each responds to its environment. The mechanisms underlying these flows, such as enzyme–substrate interactions, often involve encounter and handling stages that are represented by equations similar to those for cells and resources, or predators and prey. We propose that these formal similarities reflect shared principles and discuss how their investigation through experiments and models may contribute to a common language for studying microbial metabolism across scales.

新陈代谢是每个细胞和生物体内发生的化学反应的复杂网络，维持生命、调节生态系统过程并影响地球气候。微生物代谢的实验和模型通常专注于某一特定尺度，而忽视了分子、细胞和生态系统之间的连接性。在这里，我们强调了在不同尺度上表现出共性的定量代谢原理，我们认为这有助于实现对微生物生命的综合视角。质量、电子和能量平衡对其在代谢网络、生物体和生态系统中的流动提供了定量限制，从而决定了它们对其环境的反应。这些流动的机制，例如酶与底物的相互作用，通常涉及相遇和处理阶段，这些阶段由类似于细胞和资源、捕食者和猎物的方程表示。我们认为这些形式上的相似性反映了共同的原则，并讨论了通过实验和模型进行的研究如何有助于形成跨尺度研究微生物代谢的共同语言。