Fig. 4

Phages are effective at controlling Streptomyces genus abundances, activity, and metabolism, including antibiotic synthesis in the soil. a Predicted virus-host links between vOTUs and bacterial MAGs. The left two panels represent bacterial host taxonomy colored by phylum and genus, and the right two panels show virus families and associated sampling treatments. Gray connecting lines show associations between bacterial hosts (at phylum and family level) and their viruses in the given sampling treatment (shown on the right). b Changes in the relative abundances of Streptomyces MAGs and their phages in phage and control groups at a 30-day sampling time point in CQ and FJ soils. c Changes in the relative transcriptional activity of Streptomyces MAGs and their phages in phage and control groups at a 30-day sampling time point in CQ and FJ soils. d Principal component analysis showing differences in soil metabolomes between phage and control groups in CQ and FJ soils (n = 4 biological replicates per treatment). e Changes in the production of four antibiotics known to be produced by Streptomyces taxa between phage and control groups in CQ and FJ soils. In panels b, c, and e, data show mean ± SD of triplicates per treatment. The asterisks indicate significant differences between phage and control groups based on the Student’s test (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, and ***p < 0.001)