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FRANCKREPORTER
The world’s oceans have greater viral diversity than previously reported, according to the results of a survey published yesterday (April 25) in Cell. The study reports nearly 200,000 different populations based on DNA analyses from 146 samples of seawater.
The authors collected samples from nearly 80 sites during a series of expeditions that included the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans. They state that because there is controversy about defining viruses as species, the viruses are described as populations in this study. These populations can be separated into five communities: Arctic, Antarctic, temperate and tropical epipelagic (up to 200 m below the surface), mesopelagic (200 to 1,000 m below the surface), and bathypelagic (1,000 to 4,000 meter below surface).
“I think that people are aware that viral diversity far exceeds that of the vast microbial diversity,” Alison Buchan of the University of Tennessee who was not involved with the ...
