How to study adaptation in organisms that we can’t see, living in environments that we can’t visit? Some thoughts in our perspective piece out today in @pnas.org www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... @biology.ox.ac.uk @stuwest.bsky.social
Excited to share a preprint of work from my postdoc with @paulturnerlab.bsky.social exploring how prophages can impact host thermal ecology and evolution. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
We (with Clement Coclet, not on Bsky) had the chance to work on a broad "state of viromics" review. We tried to use this to give an overview of how the field changed over the last ~ 15 years, and also what we think are some of the major remaining challenges. Full-text access at -> rdcu.be/excHt
Check out the official Phage Names in Table S1, like Escherichia phage MiataMamis, that were inspired by loved ones and colleagues, and will soon be immortalized in the National Library of Medicine. 📜
I’m lucky to have had lots of help with my big postdoc project and a special thanks to @asanchezlab.bsky.social , Kevin Foster, @paulturnerlab.bsky.social, Jonas Schluter, @jgoldford.bsky.social, Odera Nweke, and @asherleeks.bsky.social.
And lastly, our study highlights how phages can live as social organisms. Just like organisms in the macroscopic world, these tiny bits of life find ways to coexist 🫂. (8/8)
Our work shows how ecological “niches” are almost endlessly divisible. Even under strict laboratory conditions, the E.coli population had heterogeneity that phage species could rely on. (7/8)
This study shifts how we think about phage diversity in nature. Phages don’t just rely on host genotypic diversity for coexistence. They use diversity in host phenotypes—similar to how viruses infect different tissues in a human made of genetically identical cells. (6/8)
The E. coli culture wasn’t really a single resource, it’s more like a buffet 🥗 of different cellular phenotypes. Different phage species preferred slow 🥬 or fast 🍅 growing cells which enabled their coexistence. (5/8)
We mapped how each species interacted with their neighbor and found that most species didn’t love sharing their host population ⚔️. So how did they coexist despite this hostility? (4/8)
Coexistence wasn’t random or short-lived, but was stable even when we tried to drive different species towards extinction 🦖 (ie. negative frequency dependent selection). (3/8)
We grew diverse phage species on a clonal (non-evolving) E. coli population and expected one species to beat out all others. Instead we found the opposite: multiple species coexisted in every single community. (2/8)
We asked: Can different phage species (bacterial viruses) coexist on a shared resource 🍝 (a genetically identical E. coli population)? The answer was overwhelmingly yes. (1/8)
Is it “winner-takes all” when the simplest living things compete? Check out my fresh publication on phage coexistence in Science and a thread below🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Is a healthy microbiome one that is rich in phages? Excited to share this work where we apply ecological theory on the role of parasites in ecosystems & explore whether viromes can be used as signatures of microbiome health 🦠
One week left to apply to the Social Lives of Viruses 2024!
50-person meeting on viral sociality, from virology to evolution, in Puerto Rico this June. All welcome; free accommodation and registration.
Apply here: forms.gle/SvgCix9Njr8r...
#SocialViruses
#ViroSky #MicroSky #EvoSky
So excited to share that my paper with Rees Kassen in American Naturalist is officially typeset and available on the AmNat website!
Please check out our exploration of how ecological interactions emerge de novo as populations diversify.
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
