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Spus et al. Microbiome Res Rep 2023;2:33 Microbiome Research
DOI: 10.20517/mrr.2023.20
Reports

Original Article Open Access

Lytic bacteriophages affect the population dynamics
of multi-strain microbial communities

1,2
2
2
1,2
Maciej Spus , Yohanes Raditya Wardhana , Judith C.M. Wolkers-Rooijackers , Tjakko Abee , Eddy J.
Smid 1,2
1
TI Food and Nutrition, Wageningen 6700 AA, the Netherlands.
2
Food Microbiology, Wageningen University, Wageningen 6700 AA, the Netherlands.
Correspondence to: Prof. Eddy J. Smid, Food Microbiology, Wageningen University, Postbus 17, Wageningen 6700 AA, the
Netherlands. E-mail: eddy.smid@wur.nl
How to cite this article: Spus M, Wardhana YR, Wolkers-Rooijackers JCM, Abee T, Smid EJ. Lytic bacteriophages affect the
population dynamics of multi-strain microbial communities. Microbiome Res Rep 2023;2:33. https://dx.doi.org/10.20517/mrr.
2023.20
Received: 30 Mar 2023 First Decision: 4 May 2023 Revised: 2 Jun 2023 Accepted: 25 Aug 2023 Published: 5 Sep 2023

Academic Editor: Douwe van Sinderen Copy Editor: Dong-Li Li Production Editor: Dong-Li Li

Abstract
Background: Lytic bacteriophages infect and lyse bacteria and, as a by-product, may affect diversity in microbial
communities through selective predation on abundant bacterial strains. We used a complex dairy starter named Ur
to investigate population dynamics of Lactococcus lactis, Lactococcus cremoris and Leuconostoc mesenteroides strains
in terms of constant-diversity and periodic selection models.

Methods: To mimic the starter Ur, we designed blends of 24 strains representing all eight previously identified
genetic lineages in the starter culture. The blends were propagated by daily transfers in milk for over 500
generations in the presence or absence of a cocktail of lytic bacteriophages. The relative abundance of genetic
lineages of L. lactis, L. cremoris and Lc. mesenteroides strains present in the complex blend, as well as phage
presence, were monitored.

Results: Control blends without phage predation showed decreased strain diversity, leading to a stable state due to
the domination of the fittest strain(s) of a particular lineage according to periodic selection dynamics. However, in
phage-challenged blends, predation caused a large shift in the microbial composition by killing the fittest and
sensitive strains.
Conclusion: It was demonstrated that phage-challenged blends maintained their diversity at the level of genetic

© The Author(s) 2023. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as
long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and
indicate if changes were made.

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