The Bacteriophage Ecology Group exists as a means of organizing the bacteriophage ecology community, fostering communication, identifying others with complementary interests, and, in general, empowering the science of bacteriophage ecology. The Bacteriophage Ecology Group performs a number of services to the bacteriophage ecology community including:

• Defining the field of bacteriophage ecology

• Maintaining a list of contacts within the bacteriophage ecology community (our members)

• Maintaining a list of links to members' home pages

• Maintaining a description of our members' research interests and bacteriophage ecology publications

• Maintaining a bibliography of bacteriophage ecology (and related) references

• Maintaining a list of meetings of interest to bacteriophage ecologists

• Maintaining a list of links of interest to bacteriophage ecologists

• Maintaining a list server list of all members and interested individuals

• Supplying a means of on-line publication of information of interest to bacteriophage ecologists (e.g., senior honors theses)

• Identifying and then acting upon means of empowering the bacteriophage ecology community

Membership is loosely limited to individuals with sufficient expertise that they may serve as bacteriophage ecology resources. The Bacteriophage Ecology Group, however, is not limited to bacteriophage ecologists. We welcome any and all scientists with an active interest in the ecology of parasites of unicellular organisms. Consider joining.

The bacteriophage ecology group is dedicated to the ecology and evolutionary biology of the parasites of unicellular organisms (UOPs, i.e., Unicellular Organism Parasites).

Included among UOPs, of course, are the bacteriophage, which are viruses whose hosts are bacteria. In addition, UOPs include:

1. the cyanophage of cyanobacteria
2. the actinophage of Actinomycetes
3. the mycoviruses of yeasts
4. the phycoviruses of unicellular, eucaryotic algae
5. Bdellovibrio spp. which parasitize gram negative bacteria
6. Legionella spp. which parasitize amoebas
7. Vampirococcus (vampirovibrio?), which parasitize/predate Chromatium bacteria
8. virioplankton, a generic term describing the myriad viruses one sees in an electron micrograph of planktonic environments
9. (please add to this list)

The Bacteriophage Ecology Group wishes to embrace and foster the study of the ecology of all of these systems.

We of the bacteriophage ecology group are interested in locating individuals who study the ecology of bacteriophage (and other UOPs), or who are interested in entering this field.

Please let us know if the bacteriophage ecology group home page has been helpful to you, or if there is anything that we might do to aid you in your efforts vis-à-vis bacteriophage ecology (comments/questions).

Please feel free to contact members with questions, comments, or requests for reprints.

Members, please supply, on a timely basis, any and all updated information and/or contributions. See, additionally, the things you can do to help, below.

Non-members, please consider joining or otherwise contributing.

Send all concerns, criticisms, comments, and contributions to Steve Abedon (microdude+@osu.edu)

UOPs may be distinguished from MOPs (parasites of multicellular organisms) by a number of criteria. For example, UOPs consist typically of obligate intracellular parasites, infect simpler hosts, and employ simpler infection strategies (ones in which within-host growth and intracellular growth are synonymous). UOPs, therefore, may be reasonably (and productively) studied as a group distinct from a group consisting solely of MOPs. More specifically:

1. UOPs tend to replicate intracellularly (i.e., they tend to be obligate intracellular parasites). In contrast, included among MOPs are both obligate intracellular parasites and many parasites which replicate extracellularly.

2. UOPs life histories exist in two fundamental and differentiable phases: A host acquisition phase (i.e., adsorption) and an intracellular phase. In contrast, intracellularly parasitic MOPs exist in three fundamental and differentiable phases: Host acquisition (which itself may be broken into two distinct phases, host entry and cell adsorption), an intracellular phase, and an extracellular, dispersal-within-the-host phase.

3. Multicellular hosts (and parasites) tend to be genetically and phenotypically more complex than unicellular organisms or viruses.

There already exist numerous groups, organizations, and academic departments dedicated to the exploration of the ecology of MOPs, most of which are not highly sympathetic to the study of the ecology of UOPs. This is because much MOP ecology is done in the guise of understanding/fighting diseases of man, as well as domesticated beasts and plants. These missions are supported financially to a large extent by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Agriculture, as well as other agencies with related missions, public and private.

The study of the ecology of UOPs consequently has been marginalized, historically as well as presently, on three fronts:

1. UOPs typically do not cause diseases in economically relevant organisms or those grown under highly controlled conditions (e.g., man, cows, and bacteria grown in laboratory or industrial culture).

2. Resources dedicated to the study of ecology have traditionally not been as extensive as those dedicated to various endeavors of more obviously pressing concern, such as fighting war, curing disease, and obtaining near-term prosperity.

3. Over the past 30 or so years UOPs have been studied primarily as model systems for characterizing the molecular genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology, and biophysics now known to be shared by all organisms. Such study, however, has been limited to that of domesticated isolates as they infect domesticated hosts grown in easily controlled, artificial environments. An immense debt is owed to those individuals who have dedicated their scientific careers to characterizing both UOPs and their hosts on a molecular level. Nevertheless, it is an unfortunate reality that in general these individuals are not highly sympathetic to attempts to apply this knowledge to questions concerning the ecology of UOPs.

Despite this history, UOPs are hardly scientifically irrelevant:

1. UOPs may be employed as model systems of ecology and disease

2. UOPs are highly relevant to terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems

3. UOPs are economically relevant, in terms of both potential for good and potential for harm

Since the ecology and hosts of many UOPs is simpler than that of many MOPs, UOPs ecology is potentially more easily determined than MOP ecology. To the extent UOPs and MOPs share basic ecological constraints, UOPs may serve as model systems for understanding the ecology of parasites in general. This is especially so since unicellular organisms, and their parasites are (as a group) more amenable to whole organismal and populational laboratory-manipulations than are multicellular organisms.

Despite this simplification on the parasitic theme, UOPs are hardly uninteresting. Indeed, they are highly polyphyletic, display numerous quirks, and, in general, have interesting life histories. They are, in short, challenging, fun, economical, and, typically, easy to work with.

Since unicellular organisms greatly outnumber multicellular organisms, an understanding of the ecology of the parasites of unicellular organisms is relevant to gaining a complete understanding of our planet's ecology.

In addition, on both empirical and logical grounds it may be argued that UOPs are the most abundant class of organisms on earth.

UOPs play a number of specific, in some cases highly economically relevant ecological roles. Fully understanding and thereby gaining an ability to efficiently work with or against these phenomena requires more than just a molecular understanding of UOP-host interactions. For example:

1. UOPs, especially viruses capable of generalized transduction, play important roles in the horizontal transfer of genetic material between hosts. Horizontal transfer of genetic material is very important with regard to various crucial problems of the modern world such as antibiotic resistance in pathogens and the potential for breakout of the products of biotechnology.

2. UOPs such as lysogenic bacteriophage are often associated with a number of important phenotype altering (conversion) genes such as virulence factors in bacteria.

3. Unicellular organisms can serve as hosts for parasites also capable of infecting and causing disease in multicellular organisms. That is, some UOPs are etiological agents for zoonotic diseases having unicellular reservoirs.

4. Bacteriophage serve as indicators of fecal pollution.

5. Bacteriophage serve as models for studies of viral disinfection.

6. UOPs may be employed as anti-microbial therapeutics (phage therapy).