Phages communicate across species to shape microbial ecosystems

Gallego-del-Sol et al. show that arbitrium-coding phages can sense non-cognate peptide signals from other phages to regulate lysis-lysogeny decisions. This crosstalk affects lysis-lysogeny outcomes of phage infections, mixed lysogenic communities, and polylysogens. Our results demonstrate that crosstalk is an important mechanism that drives phage interactions in microbial communities.