Synthetic Horizontal Gene Transfer for Ecosystem Restoration

Restoring endangered ecosystems has become a pressing issue as the effects of global warming continue to harm existing communities. Over the last decade, several studies have suggested the use of synthetic biology as a tool to protect these biodiverse communities by augmenting their functionality. A critical example concerns soil microbiome communities in drylands, where increasing water retention by some of the constituent species could effectively protect the ecosystem from abrupt degradation. However, how to effectively deploy a functional synthetic construct that can scale its impact to the community level remains an open question. Recent experimental research has designed recombinant gene plasmids with the capacity to horizontally transfer across soil microbial communities. Here, we explore the impacts of synthetic horizontal gene transfer in models of ecological consortia. By coupling consumer-resource dynamics with multispecies gene transfer, our work identifies the design conditions that promote biodiversity while regulating gene propagation and the spread of engineered organisms.