Bacteriophage

Bacteriophages are viruses that attack bacteria - they're the most abundant biological entities on Earth, with an estimated 10³¹ phages in the biosphere (ten million trillion trillion). Every day, phages kill approximately 40% of all bacteria in the ocean, playing a crucial role in nutrient cycling and preventing any single bacterial strain from dominating ecosystems.

Phages demonstrate competitive limitation through predation. They're specialists - each phage type attacks specific bacterial strains. This specificity prevents bacterial monocultures from forming. The business parallel is specialist competitors that check dominant players: short-sellers targeting overvalued stocks, investigative journalists exposing fraud, or niche competitors attacking market leaders' weakest points. They provide ecosystem-level balance.