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Optimal foraging by bacteriophages through host avoidance.

Richard H Heineman1, Rachael Springman, James J Bull

  • 1Section of Integrative Biology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78712, USA. heineman@mail.utexas.edu

The American Naturalist
|February 8, 2008
PubMed
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Optimal foraging theory applied to bacteriophages shows diet restriction is favored when good hosts are common. However, host discrimination costs can be influenced by poor host density.

Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Virology
  • Behavioral ecology

Background:

  • Optimal foraging theory traditionally explains animal diet selection based on food quality and availability.
  • This theory can be extended to understand viral host range, which is genetically determined.
  • Bacteriophages (bacterial viruses) typically benefit from expanded host ranges, but foraging theory suggests conditions where avoiding poor hosts is advantageous.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To test the applicability of optimal foraging theory to bacteriophage host range.
  • To investigate the evolutionary conditions favoring diet restriction in bacteriophages.
  • To examine how host quality and density influence bacteriophage host range evolution.

Main Methods:

  • Engineered bacterial hosts to create varying fitness effects for infecting bacteriophages.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Competed broad and narrow host range bacteriophage T7 strains against each other.
  • Assessed the impact of host quality differences and densities on phage competition and host discrimination.

    • Main Results:

    • Bacteriophage T7 evolved to discriminate between different strains of Escherichia coli.
    • Diet restriction was favored when high-quality hosts were abundant or host quality varied significantly.
    • The cost of host discrimination, influenced by poor host density, affected the direction of selection, contradicting the basic foraging model.

    Conclusions:

    • Optimal foraging theory provides a useful framework for understanding bacteriophage host range evolution.
    • Bacteriophage host range is not solely driven by expansion but also by strategic diet restriction.
    • The density of suboptimal hosts and the costs associated with host discrimination are critical factors in phage evolution.