A theoretical analysis of how strain-specific viruses can control microbial species diversity

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1400909111
• Publication Date: 2014-05-14T05:19:21Z
• Authors: T. Frede Thingstad; Selina Våge; Julia E. Storesund; Ruth-Anne Sandaa; Jarl Giske
• Keywords: 0303 health sciences; 03 medical and health sciences; Population Dynamics; Computer Simulation; Biodiversity; Water Microbiology; Models, Biological; Alphaproteobacteria; 3. Good health

Significance This work presents the first detailed analysis to the authors’ knowledge of how species-level diversity is a property emerging from competitive and defensive abilities at the organism level in a microbial system where the diversity-generating mechanism is strain-specific viral lysis. The theoretical analysis constitutes a general case treatment of the important special case question of what properties may make SAR11, a subphylum within the Alphaproteobacteria, so dominant in the pelagic environment. The resulting conceptual framework connects differences in the molecular defense mechanism to ecosystem-level properties such as diversity and activity. It also suggests a reinterpretation of the concept of dormancy in aquatic microbial communities.