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Understanding Viral Impacts in Soil Microbial Ecology Through the Persistence and Decay of Infectious Bacteriophages

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Abstract

Marine bacteriophages have been well characterized in terms of decay rates, population dynamics in relation to their hosts, and their impacts on biogeochemical cycles in the global ocean. Knowledge in soil bacteriophage ecology lags considerably behind, with few studies documenting population dynamics with hosts and even fewer reporting phage decay rates. By using sterile soil or aquatic microcosms inoculated with single bacteriophage isolates, phage decay rates (loss of infectivity over time) were determined, independent of host interactions, for 5 model phage isolates. Decay rates varied by phage from 0.11–2.07% h−1 in soils to 0.07–0.28% h−1 in aquatic microcosms. For phages incubated in both soil and aquatic microcosms, the observed decay rate was consistently higher in soil microcosms than in aquatic microcosms by at least a factor of two. However, when decay rates for soil phage isolates in the present study were compared to those reported for marine and freshwater phage isolates from previous studies, the decay constants for soil phages were, on average, 4 times lower than those for aquatic phages. Slower rates of phage decay in soils indicate a lower turnover rate, which may have subsequent and potentially far-reaching impacts on virus-mediated mortality and bacterial activity. The wide range of decay rates observed in the present study and the lack of information on this critical aspect of virus-host dynamics in soil emphasizes the need for continued research in this field.

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Data Availability

Upon acceptance, raw data regarding infectious particle counts (pfu gdw−1, pfu ml−1) for all experiments will be provided via figshare (10.6084/m9.figshare.21897168).

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Not applicable.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a Biology Research and Opportunity Endowment award to KEW and a Mary E. Ferguson Memorial Research Grant award and Charles Center award to AGD. The authors wish to thank Rebecca Quinn, Erin Goodstein, Jacob Warner, and Krista Wink for their help in testing and developing the microcosm design and extraction procedures.

Funding

This work was completed with funding from the Roy R. Charles Center at the College of William and Mary and a Mary E. Ferguson Research Award to AGD, and a William & Mary Biology Research and Opportunity Endowment award to KEW.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biology Department, The College of William and Mary, 3037 Integrated Science Center, Williamsburg, VA, 23185, USA

    Alessandra G. DiPietro, Shawn A. Bryant, Matthew M. Zanger & Kurt E. Williamson

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  1. Alessandra G. DiPietro
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  2. Shawn A. Bryant
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  3. Matthew M. Zanger
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  4. Kurt E. Williamson
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Contributions

AGD helped conceive and execute all experiments and wrote the manuscript; SAB executed experiments with B. subtilis; MMZ isolated the phages used in experiments and refined extraction protocols and microcosm design; KEW conceived all experiments, assisted with data processing, and edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Kurt E. Williamson.

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DiPietro, A.G., Bryant, S.A., Zanger, M.M. et al. Understanding Viral Impacts in Soil Microbial Ecology Through the Persistence and Decay of Infectious Bacteriophages. Curr Microbiol 80, 276 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-023-03386-x

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