Revealing drivers of bacteriophage diversity by combining bioinformatics and modelling

Bacteriophages, or viruses that infect bacteria, are among the most ubiquitous biological entities on Earth; wherever bacteria exist, bacteriophages are present. In marine environments, they are the primary player in nutrient cycling, by lysing up to 40% of bacteria every day. The role of phages in soil environments is less well understood, but here too the viral population impacts the host population size and composition. These phage and bacterial populations are often studied by means of metagenomics: the study of the genomes and (functions of) genes of organisms from a bulk sample. Despite technological advancements enabling researchers to identify microdiversity in microbes and viruses more than ever before, the ecological role of microdiversity remains largely unknown. Simply put, there is still a lot unknown about microdiversity. The project focuses on uncovering the effect of space and time on microdiversity present in bacteriophages. Different biotic and abiotic factors also possibly influencing microdiversity will be investigated further. The main theme of the project is therefore microdiversity in soil-borne bacteriophage populations.