WIKIMEDIA, LARS LENTZIn the microbial populations of deep-sea sediments, archaea suffer viral infections about twice as often as bacteria, despite the latter being more abundant, according to a study published in Science Advances today (October 12). Given the enormous scale of deep-sea ecosystems, the results indicate that archaea-virus relationships could be a major contributor to global biogeochemical cycles.
“[This] appears to be a careful and thorough study that has significant implications for microbial communities across all oceanic basins,” microbiologist Steven Wilhelm of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who was not involved in the work, wrote in an email to The Scientist. “[It] implies that certain microbial populations are much more susceptible to virus activity in these deep ocean regions,” he added.
Deep-sea ecosystems cover more than 65 percent of the world’s surface and comprise more than 90 percent of the global biosphere, but how they work is still somewhat of a mystery, said marine biologist and ecologist Roberto Danovaro of the Marche Polytechnic University in Ancona, Italy. One thing that is clear: just like in the rest of the world’s biosphere, viruses are ...
