title: Bacteria-phage interactions in natural environments.
abstract: Phages are considered the most abundant and diverse biological entities on Earth and are notable not only for their sheer abundance, but also for their influence on bacterial hosts. In nature, bacteria-phage relationships are complex and have far-reaching consequences beyond particular pairwise interactions, influencing everything from bacterial virulence to eukaryotic fitness to the carbon cycle. In this review, we examine bacteria and phage distributions in nature first by highlighting biogeographic patterns and nonhost environmental influences on phage distribution, then by considering the ways in which phages and bacteria interact, emphasizing phage life cycles, bacterial responses to phage infection, and the complex patterns of phage host specificity. Finally, we discuss phage impacts on bacterial abundance, genetics, and physiology, and further aim to clarify distinctions between current theoretical models and point out areas in need of future research.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Center for Genomics and Systems Biology, New York University, New York, New York, USA; Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA; Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA.
authors.forename: Samuel L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Díaz-Muñoz
authors.affiliation: Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Tremough, Cornwall, United Kingdom. Electronic address: b.l.koskella@exeter.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Britt
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Koskella
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics / Q000821:virology*; D018407:Bacterial Physiological Phenomena; D001435:Bacteriophages / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D005075:Biological Evolution; D004777:Environment; D058507:Host Specificity
keywords: Bacteriophage; Coevolution; Frequency-dependent selection; Kill the Winner; Microbial diversity; Phage therapy