The Role of Viral Infection on a Bacterial Ecosystem with Nutrient Enrichment

Abstract

A mathematical analysis of a virus–marine bacteria interaction model is proposed to study the role of virus infection on a bacterial community in the presence of a nutrient. Our model includes four state variables, namely, nutrient concentration, susceptible bacteria biomass, infected bacteria biomass and phage virus concentration. The phage virus infection induces viral lysis, which releases into the marine environment on average b (viral replication factor) viruses per cell. The dynamical behavior of the system is studied by deriving the existence and bounded conditions and criteria for local and global stability of solutions. The local stability for the interior positive equilibrium is studied by using Routh–Hurwitz conditions. The general bifurcation analysis is shown. The qualitative behaviour of the system is verified through numerical simulation. It is observed that inclusion of nutrients in the system changes the nature of stability of different equilibria.