The phenomenon of apparent disappearance in the marine bacteriophage dynamics

Abstract

It was observed, that in aquatic microbial systems, high magnitude variations in abundance, such as sudden blooms alternating with comparatively long periods of very low abundance (apparent disappearance'\'''\'') are relatively common. In order to explain this phenomenon, in this paper we considered bacteria-phage interaction assuming that the variations in abundance of both, bacteria and phage, are results of phage parasitism on this bacterial species. We construct a simple autonomous mathematical model of a pair bacteria-phage'\'''\'', which assumes neither seasonal or periodic forcing, nor external factors of another nature. This model exhibits dynamics which is able to explains the phenomenon.