Novel lytic and lysogenic cyanophages predicted to infect <i>Microcoleus</i> associated with anatoxin-producing benthic mats
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Proliferations of toxic benthic cyanobacteria are increasingly being reported around the world. Of particular concern are Microcoleus -dominated mats associated with anatoxin production that have resulted in dog fatalities. Although the impact of cyanophages has been demonstrated in planktonic systems, their role in the population dynamics of benthic cyanobacteria has received little attention. Here we use metagenomics to explore phage presence in benthic mats from the Wolastoq|Saint John River (WR; New Brunswick, Canada) and Eel River (ER; California, US). Our survey recovered multiple viral-like sequences associated with different putative bacterial hosts, including two cyanophage genomes with apparently different replication strategies. A lysogenic cyanophage (predicted as a prophage) was found integrated in the genomes of Microcoleus sp. 3 recovered from five ER mat samples. This Microcoleus phage is related to previously described Phormidium phage counterparts. Also, we recovered lytic cyanophages from WR and ER mats dominated by anatoxin-producing Microcoleus , which was predicted as the putative host. Despite the geographical distance between WR and ER, the lytic Microcoleus phage genomes recovered from each river have similar sizes (circa 239 Kbp) and share similar gene content with high sequence identity. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that these lytic Microcoleus phages are distant from any other cyanophage previously described. Our results constitute the first report of cyanophages predicted to infect and therefore influence the population dynamics of mat-forming Microcoleus spp. associated with anatoxin production.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".