About the Authors

Ariel D. Weinberger

ariel_weinberger@meei.harvard.edu (ADW); jbanfield@berkeley.edu (JFB)

These authors made major contributions to the paper, the first in developing the theory, modeling the data, and writing the paper; the second in assembling and analyzing metagenomic data.

Affiliations Biophysics Graduate Group, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America, Departments of Ophthalmology and Microbiology and Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America

Christine L. Sun

These authors made major contributions to the paper, the first in developing the theory, modeling the data, and writing the paper; the second in assembling and analyzing metagenomic data.

Affiliation Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America

Mateusz M. Pluciński

Affiliations Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America, Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America

Vincent J. Denef

Affiliation Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America

Brian C. Thomas

Affiliation Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America

Philippe Horvath

Affiliation DuPont Nutrition and Health, Dange-Saint-Romain, France

Rodolphe Barrangou

Affiliation DuPont Nutrition and Health, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America

Michael S. Gilmore

Affiliations Departments of Ophthalmology and Microbiology and Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Microbial Sciences Initiative, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

Wayne M. Getz

Affiliation Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America

Jillian F. Banfield

ariel_weinberger@meei.harvard.edu (ADW); jbanfield@berkeley.edu (JFB)

Affiliations Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: ADW WMG JFB. Performed the experiments: ADW CLS MMP. Analyzed the data: ADW CLS MMP VJD BCT JFB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: ADW PH RB MSG JFB. Wrote the paper: ADW MSG. Contributed to writing the manuscript: CLS MMP VJD BCT PH RB WMG JFB.