Density-dependent feedback and higher-order interactions enable coexistence in phage-bacteria community dynamics

Diverse phage-bacteria communities coexist at high densities in environmental, agricultural, and human-associated microbiomes. Phage-bacteria coexistence is often attributed to coevolutionary processes mediated by complex, pairwise infection networks. Here, using in vitro experiments and mathematical models, we explore how higher-order interactions function as a complementary, ecological feedback mechanism to stabilize phage-bacteria communities. To do so, we examine an environmentally-derived, synthetic phage-bacteria community comprised of five marine heterotrophic bacteria (Cellulophaga baltica and Pseudoalteromonas strains) and five associated phage. We used Bayesian inference to reconstruct free phage production in one-step growth experiments and then forecasted pairwise phage-bacteria community dynamics over multiple infection cycles. In contrast to model predictions of rapid bacterial population collapse, each bacterial strain persisted in the community. We hypothesized and then experimentally validated the relevance of infection attenuation at relatively high viral densities. We extended models into a community context, corroborating complex coexistence of all phage and bacteria. Life history traits inferred in community fits often differed from those inferred in a pairwise context, implicating higher-order interactions as an additional, ecological stabilization mechanism. Follow-up experiments confirm that phage traits (including burst size) can shift when infecting single vs. multiple strains. More broadly, these findings suggest that complex community coexistence of phage and bacteria may be more common than anticipated when including feedback mechanisms outside of the growth-dominated regimes of fitted pairwise models that do not reflect the full scope of ecologically relevant contexts.