Prophage mediated control of higher order interactions - Insights from multi-level approaches

Prophages, latent viral elements residing in bacterial genomes affect bacterial ecology and evolution in diverse ways. Do these prophage-mediated effects extend beyond the prophage-bacterial relationship? Here, I summarize the latest advances exploring how the impacts of prophages are transmitted through multiple levels of biological systems with potential impacts on ecosystem stability and functioning. The diverse effects of prophages on higher-order interactions are context-specific, ranging from contributions to global biogeochemical processes and mutualistic interactions to increased disease severity with negative impacts on ecosystem engineers and potential cascading effects for multiple species. While we have a solid understanding of the mechanisms by which prophages modulate their bacterial hosts at the cellular and population levels, future research may take an integrative approach to quantify their effects in complex ecosystems.