The engine of wastewater treatment biological systems, which remove contaminants from sewage before it is discharged back into watercourses, is the interaction between different microorganisms that participate in the process and between these organisms and the environment in which they live.

Detailed knowledge of this microbial ecology and its relationship with the water purification process is of scientific interest and could contribute, in the medium and long term, to the development of effective intervention strategies for these complex systems.

A study conducted by members of the Microbial Ecology Laboratory under the direction of Dr. Leonardo Erijman, recently published in The ISME Journal, has just provided the first high-resolution temporal profile of the interaction between a bacterium and its phages in an open ecosystem outside the laboratory.