A new paper authored by Tapan Goel, along with Stephen Beckett and Prof. Joshua Weitz, has been published in Virus Evolution. The study, titled “Eco-evolutionary dynamics of temperate phages in periodic environments,” uses non-linear differential equations to simulate how temperate viruses evolve in response to periodic fluctuations in the environment.

The paper sheds light on how certain evolutionary pressures such as fluctuations in host availability and viral mortality drive the evolution of viral traits associated with latent infections. The paper also demonstrates how temperate viral strategies provide insurance against potential local extinction of viruses faced with stochastic environmental fluctuations.