Table 2.

Definitions of global parameters used for constructing random ecosystems.

M	Number of resources
T	Number of resource classes
Stot	Number of microbial species in regional pool
F	Number of specialist families
S	Number of microbial species initially present in each local community
μc	Mean sum over a row of the preference matrix ciα
c0	Low consumption level for binary ciα
c1	High consumption level for binary ciα
q	Fraction of consumption capacity allocated to preferred resource class
s	Sparsity of metabolic matrix
fw	Fraction of secreted byproducts allocated to “waste” resource class
fs	Fraction of secreted byproducts allocated to same resource class