Look for our new paper out in Science, titled “Rapid bacteria-phage coevolution drives the emergence of multiscale networks.” This work is was done in collaboration with Justin Meyer and his group of researchers from the University of California in San Diego.

The editor’s summary of this article reads:

Real communities are characterized by complex interaction networks among species. The interaction is described as “nested” if there are specialist species interacting with subsets of species and “modular” if species interact within a group but not between different groups. A mixed pattern is known as a “multiscale” network. Borin et al. examined if and how a multiscale interaction network can develop through rapid evolution in a simple community with one type of bacteria and one type of phage. The authors were able to recapitulate the range of host interactions using receptor knock-out experiments. This means that phage-host interactions in a laboratory setting are sufficient to form complex ecological patterns and could be a valuable model system for informing phage therapy. —Caroline Ash

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