Jack of Many Trades? Emergence of Host Immunity Against a Plastic Virus

Event Type: In-Person

Speaker: Juan A Bonachela, Rutgers University

Abstract:

The antagonistic interaction between bacteria and their viruses (bacteriophages) triggers fascinating ecological and evolutionary responses from both host and phage. When studying these responses, standard theories overlook the dependence of viral performance on host physiological state. This dependence, a direct result on the viral use of host resources and machinery, poses a relationship between viral traits and its host environment (viral plasticity). In this talk, we will discuss how incorporating this additional layer of realism changes our expectations and theoretical predictions both from an ecological and an evolutionary point of view. We will pay special attention to the coevolutionary arms race that ensues when hosts develop immunity against the virus, and how viral plasticity contributes to shaping the resulting community. We will focus on very preliminary results obtained for E.coli and T virus system, but will also discuss how to apply the framework to other systems.