Bacteriophage ecosystem ecology

Ecosystem ecology considers the interactions between organisms and the biotic and, especially, the abiotic components of environments. We can consider phage ecosystem ecology especially in terms of the phage impact on abiotic aspects of environments, whereas phage organismsl ecology is more concerned with the impact of abiotic apsects of environments on phages.

Phages impact enviornments by...

1. Releasing nutrients from bacteria (a consequence of bacterial lysis)
   
2. Releasing enzymes (ectoenzymes) by lysing bacteria
   
3. Encoding factors (e.g., exotoxins) which can modify environments

The impact of phages on ecosystems typically can be differentiated into chemical aspects (e.g., release of enzymes or nutrients from lysing bacteria) versus physical or spatial aspects (e.g., phage-encoded exotoxin physical disruption of enviornments).

At the moment the ecosystem ecology section of the phage ecology entry on Wikipedia is a useful resource so please see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_ecology#Phage_ecosystem_ecology  for more information on this subject.

Links

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_ecology#Phage_ecosystem_ecology

Internal hierarchy

1. phage.atwiki.com
2. bacteriophage ecology
3. bacteriophage ecosystem ecology