Gut Microbiome Diversity Simulator

The human gut hosts hundreds of bacterial species competing for the same fermentable resources — collectively a "second genome" of roughly 3.3 million genes. This simulator tracks five representative phyla as they compete for that shared niche under replicator dynamics: each phylum's population share grows only when its fitness beats the community average. Dial in dietary fiber, antibiotic dose and processed sugar to see the community shift between a balanced, high-diversity ecosystem and dysbiosis — the collapse toward one dominant, often pro-inflammatory phylum linked to obesity, inflammatory bowel disease and antibiotic-associated infection. The Shannon diversity index quantifies exactly where the ecosystem sits on that spectrum in real time.