{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"institution":[{"name":"bioRxiv"}],"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,30]],"date-time":"2026-07-30T13:00:05Z","timestamp":1785416405701,"version":"3.56.0"},"posted":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,16]]},"group-title":"Ecology","reference-count":74,"publisher":"openRxiv","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,16]],"date-time":"2025-05-16T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1747353600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"award":["1829636"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["1829636"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/021nxhr62","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"award":["72123"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["72123"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/01cmst727","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"NSF Emerge Biology Integration Institute","award":["2022070"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2022070"]}]},{"name":"DOE Systems Biology award","award":["DE-SC0023307"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["DE-SC0023307"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"accepted":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,22]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>ABSTRACT<\/jats:title>\n                <jats:p>\n                  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\n                  <jats:italic>in vitro<\/jats:italic>\n                  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 (\n                  <jats:italic>Cellulophaga baltica<\/jats:italic>\n                  and\n                  <jats:italic>Pseudoalteromonas<\/jats:italic>\n                  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.\n                <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1101\/2025.05.15.651590","type":"posted-content","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,5,16]],"date-time":"2025-05-16T06:45:12Z","timestamp":1747377912000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Density-dependent feedback and higher-order interactions enable coexistence in phage-bacteria community dynamics"],"prefix":"10.64898","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7585-4957","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Raunak","family":"Dey","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD, USA"},{"name":"School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7377-139X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ashley R.","family":"Coenen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Natalie E.","family":"Solonenko","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University"},{"name":"Center of Microbiome Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Marie N.","family":"Burris","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Anna I.","family":"Mackey","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-8865-0853","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Julia","family":"Galasso","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2055-9699","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Christine L.","family":"Sun","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University"},{"name":"Center of Microbiome Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4928-8925","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"David","family":"Demory","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6328-9663","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Daniel","family":"Muratore","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4410-2960","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Stephen J.","family":"Beckett","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA"},{"name":"University of Maryland, College Park"},{"name":"University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing, North Bethesda, MD, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8398-8234","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Matthew B.","family":"Sullivan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University"},{"name":"Center of Microbiome Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA"},{"name":"Department of Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA"},{"name":"NSF EMERGE Biology Integration Institute, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3433-8312","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Joshua S.","family":"Weitz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD, USA"},{"name":"University of Maryland, College Park"},{"name":"University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing, North Bethesda, MD, 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