Ecology and evolution of phage-bacteria in-teractions in the rhizosphere

Ville Friman
Department of Biology, University of York, UK

 ville.friman@york.ac.uk

Bacteriophages have been proposed as an alternative to pesticides to kill bacterial pathogens of crops. However, the efficacy of phage biocontrol is variable and this this is mainly because the underlying ecology and evolution phage-bacteria interactions are poorly understood in natural rhizosphere microbiomes1,2. We used a combination of field sampling studies, experimental evolution and greenhouse experiments to study ecological and evolutionary dynamics between Ralstonia solanacearum plant pathogenic bacterium and its phage parasites. Our results suggest that phages could be used as a precision tool to engineer the composition of rhizosphere microbiomes by selectively targeting pathogens. Furthermore, phage resistance evolution might not be a problem for the long-term efficiency if we use phages that impose strong evolutionary trade-offs to the pathogen.

Recent publications:

Wang, X., Wei, Z., Li, M., Wang, X., Shan, A., Mei, X., Jousset, A., Shen, Q., Xu, Y. and Friman, V.P., 2017. Parasites and competitors suppress bacterial pathogen synergistically due to evolutionary trade‐offs. Evolution, 71(3), pp.733-746.

Wang, X., Wei, Z., Yang, K., Wang, J., Jousset, A., Xu, Y., Shen, Q. & Friman, V-P. (2019). Phage combination therapies for bacterial wilt disease in tomato. Nature Biotechnology 37: 1513-1520.

Wei, Z., Gu, Y., Friman, V.P., Kowalchuk, G.A., Xu, Y., Shen, Q. and Jousset, A., 2019. Initial soil microbiome composition and functioning predetermine future plant health. Science Advances, 5(9), p.eaaw0759.