Unlike a standard antibiotic, bacteriophages have evolved over millennia to have the ability to respond according to different environmental conditions so they can maximize their success in terms of the number of viral progenies made. Most phage isolation is carried out from incredibly fruitful sources such as sewage and using exponentially growing bacterial cells. Both aspects however will select for particular types of phages that may not work under the actual conditions needed to treat bacteria during chronic infection. In chronic infection, cells will often be in stationary phase, in nutrient limited conditions and in variable oxygen levels. The bacteria have evolved their own success strategies in these conditions and thus phages have evolved many ways in which to accommodate this. I will give examples from work in our laboratory and that of others that relates to the three ecologically relevant parameters, temperature, oxygen status and growth status. I will show how phages respond to these conditions and show how we have used different genomic and structural approaches to connect these phenotypic observations to a mechanistic understanding of why they are behaving in this way. Such insights should really enhance our ability to develop bacteriophages in an informed way. There are no existing frameworks to contextualize bacteriophage's ecological traits, so we lack an understanding of which of these traits lead to the best therapeutic outcomes. To address this, we have been working on a repurposed ecological framework called the CSR framework, developed to understand plant ecological strategies. I will present this framework and the progress that we are making to better develop a knowledge of ecological strategies within Phage Therapy. I will end my presentation by sharing some recent data on the use of phages on clinically relevant urinary tract infection (UTI) models. The phages used in these studies took many years to identify, characterize and combine to get to the point where we could use them in this preclinical testing. Ultimately, it makes sense that embedding ecology firmly within processes of bacteriophage isolation, development and usage will significantly accelerate the progress of phage development and ensure that the most optimal phages are developed for therapeutic purposes.