We present a minimal theoretical framework to quantify the selective advantage of a prophage-borne defense system in competition between temperate phages infecting the same bacterial host. Because defense systems can be non-transitive, true rock-paper-scissors relations can lead to persistent oscillations.
We present a minimal theoretical framework to quantify the selective advantage of a prophage-borne defense system in competition between temperate phages infecting the same bacterial host.
The model reveals regimes in which a "defensive phage" can invade and persist despite growth costs, regimes of bistability, and others in which all phage types coexist due to a rock–paper–scissors-like...
Because defense systems can be non-transitive, true rock-paper-scissors relations can lead to persistent oscillations.
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We present a minimal theoretical framework to quantify the selective advantage of a prophage-borne defense system in competition between temperate phages infecting the same bacterial host. Because defense systems can be non-transitive, true rock-paper-scissors relations can lead to persistent oscillations. These results identify simple conditions under which phage-encoded defense systems are evolutionarily stable, providing testable predictions for the prevalence and maintenance of these systems in natural microbial communities.
Yet the evolutionary value of such defenses to the phage remains unclear. The model reveals regimes in which a "defensive phage" can invade and persist despite growth costs, regimes of bistability, and others in which all phage types coexist due to a rock–paper–scissors-like dynamic between defensive, non-defensive, and defense-loss variants.
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