Modeling the Fitness Consequences of a Cyanophage-Encoded Photosynthesis Gene

Introduction e marine picocyanobacteria Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus are numerically dominant phytoplankton in nutrient-poor open ocean ecosystems, and are an important contributor to photosynthesis in the oceans [1-3]. ey are infected by cyanophages including members of the families Podoviridae, Myoviridae and Siphoviridae [4], which can be abundant in regions where these cells dominate (e.g. [5-8]). Several genomes of these marine cyanophages have been sequenced, revealing gene content and organization broadly similar to confamilial phages [9-11]. For example, cyanophage P-SSP7, which infects Prochlorococcus MED4, has many genomic similarities to the T7 phage that infects Escherichia coli [11].