Power law rank-abundance models for marine phage communities.
Metagenomic analyses suggest that the rank-abundance curve for marine phage communities follows a power law distribution. A new type of power law dependence based on a simple model in which a modified version of Lotka-Volterra predator-prey dynamics is sampled uniformly in time is presented. Biologically, the model embodies a kill the winner hypothesis and a neutral evolution hypothesis. The model can match observed power law distributions and uses very few parameters that are readily identifiable and characterize phage ecosystems. The model makes new untested predictions: (1) it is unlikely that the most abundant phage genotype will be the same at different time points and (2) the long-term decay of isolated phage populations follows a power law.
Hoffmann
Karl Heinz
KH
Physics Institute, Technical University of Chemnitz, Chemnitz, Germany.
Rodriguez-Brito
Beltran
B
Breitbart
Mya
M
Bangor
David
D
Angly
Florent
F
Felts
Ben
B
Nulton
James
J
Rohwer
Forest
F
Salamon
Peter
P
D001435:Bacteriophages / Q000254:growth & development*; D017753:Ecosystem; D008954:Models, Biological; D014871:Water Microbiology