Inferring single-cell heterogeneity of bacteriophage lysis-associated life-history traits from population-scale dynamics
2026-07-15
Phage-induced lysis of bacteria transforms population dynamics, community structure, and ecosystem functioning. Scaling up infected cell fate to quantify population- and ecosystem-scale impacts requires estimates of viral life-history traits, including underlying heterogeneity in the timing, efficiency, and outcome of lytic infections. However, the variability of lysis-associated phage traits remains poorly characterized. Here, we infer single-cell heterogeneity in lysis-associated traits for an ecologically relevant system: Syn9, a T4-like cyanophage infecting Synechococcus strain WH8109, a representative of globally abundant marine cyanobacteria. We estimate the heterogeneous distribution of latent period and burst size using a nonlinear model of infection dynamics applied to population-scale time-series data. We then validate our inference approach using a single-cell assay—demonstrating the feasibility of inferring phage trait heterogeneity from population data even in the absence of single-cell experiments. The variation in Syn9’s latent period exceeds that previously found in coliphages and reinforces the limitations of representing viral traits with a single value. Moreover, by partitioning lytic events via the inferred heterogeneous latent period distribution, we show that realized burst size variability is largely explained by differences in latent period, providing a path forward to measure and integrate trait (co)variation into population and ecosystem models.