Bacteriophage-mediated competition in Bordetella bacteria.pdfVIP

a r X i v : q - b i o / 0 5 0 7 0 3 8 v 1 [ q - b i o .P E ] 2 5 J u l 2 0 0 5 Bacteriophage-mediated competition in Bordetella bacteria Jaewook Joo??,Michelle Gunny?, Marisa Cases?, Peter Hudson?, Re?ka Albert?,Eric Harvill? ?Department of Veterinary Science, ?Department of Physics, ?Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (Dated: February 9, 2008) ABSTRACT Apparent competition between species is believed to be one of the principle driving forces that structure ecological communities, although the precise mechanisms have yet to be characterized. Here we de- velop a model system that isolates phage-mediated inter- actions by neutralizing resource competition using two genetically identical B. bronchiseptica strains that dif- fer only in that one is the carrier of a phage and the other is susceptible to the phage. We observe and quan- tify the competitive advantage of the bacterial strain bearing the prophage in both invading and in resist- ing invasion by bacteria susceptible to the phage, and use our measurements to develop a mathematical model of phage-mediated competition. The model predicts, and experimental evidence confirms, that the competi- tive advantage conferred by the phage depends only on the relative phage pathology and is independent of other phage and host parameters. This work combines exper- imental and mathematical approaches to the study of phage-driven competition, and provides an experimen- tally tested framework for evaluation of the effects of pathogens/parasites on interspecific competition. INTRODUCTION Pathogen-induced damage to hosts, commonly observed as infectious disease, has been extensively investigated in humans and other an- imals [1, 2]. A pathogen can also confer a competitive advantage to one of two competing species through the process known as apparent competition [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. In both scenarios pathogens appear to drive the evolu- tion of their hosts, exerting a selection