This monograph introduces the biologically suave reader to the unseen but vibrant ecology of bacterial viruses, also known as phages, whose numbers potentially exceed those of all other organisms combined. Our focus is on phage population dynamics and community interactions (Part I) as well as various aspects of phage evolutionary biology (Part II). Also included are introductions to the phage ecology of a range of environments (Part III), as well as the mathematical modeling of phage (and bacteria) population growth and community interactions (Part IV). In short, this monograph provides a much-needed snapshot of phage ecology as reflected by the interests of the authors involved, and as seen especially from the perspective of the individual phage.

This book, along with my personal research interests, reflects my position at Ohio State University, which is on a regional campus in the town of Mansfield, Ohio. At OSU—Mansfield I lack access to fellow microbiologists, graduate students, and even upper-level undergraduates. Instead, I'm surrounded by a number of fabulous liberal-arts faculty who tend to publish without doing laboratory research (gasp!) in such disciplines as English and History and who otherwise write books for a living. My isolation, as well as my graduate and postdoctoral experience, led me early on to reach out to fellow phage ecologists by a then new-fangled medium called the World Wide Web.