title: Bacteria-phage antagonistic coevolution in soil.
abstract: Bacteria and their viruses (phages) undergo rapid coevolution in test tubes, but the relevance to natural environments is unclear. By using a "mark-recapture" approach, we showed rapid coevolution of bacteria and phages in a soil community. Unlike coevolution in vitro, which is characterized by increases in infectivity and resistance through time (arms race dynamics), coevolution in soil resulted in hosts more resistant to their contemporary than past and future parasites (fluctuating selection dynamics). Fluctuating selection dynamics, which can potentially continue indefinitely, can be explained by fitness costs constraining the evolution of high levels of resistance in soil. These results suggest that rapid coevolution between bacteria and phage is likely to play a key role in structuring natural microbial communities.
authors: Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK. pedro.gomezlopez@zoo.ox.ac.uk
authors: Pedro
authors: P
authors: Gómez
authors: Angus
authors: A
authors: Buckling
mesh_terms: D000220:Adaptation, Biological; D005075:Biological Evolution; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017105:Pseudomonas Phages / Q000502:physiology*; D011551:Pseudomonas fluorescens / Q000502:physiology / Q000821:virology*; D012988:Soil Microbiology