Mutualistic cross-feeding in microbial systems generates bistability via an Allee effect

Congratulations to Stefan for publishing his latest work in Scientific Reports! In microbial ecosystems, species can interact in a mutualistic way as a result of metabolic cross-feeding. Here, we reduce a theoretical nutrient-explicit model of two mutualistic cross-feeders in a chemostat, uncovering an explicit relation to a growth model with an Allee effect.