This Perspective article is completed by Prof. Jianming Xu (Institute of Soil and Water Resources and Environmental Science, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University) and Mr. Di Tong (Institute of Soil and Water Resources and Environmental Science, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University). Viruses, the most prevalent biological entities on Earth with an order of magnitude greater abundance than prokaryotes, can infect all domains of life. How do so many viruses influence the environmental element cycles?
Based on the systematic summary of the profound influence of viruses on the carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles and their interaction with biological and abiotic factors. They proposed, for the first time, a new term "viral aggregation" to more accurately describe the accumulation of lysis products in the soil/sediment environment, due to the limited range of viral movement, the highly heterogeneous distribution of soil physicochemical properties, and the preferential encapsulation of lytic products by soil aggregates. “The current research is in its infancy and several concepts need to be redefined based on actual environmental conditions, such as the proposed viral aggregation effect,” Jianming says.
Viruses can not only promote the carbon encapsulating effect of the soil microbial carbon pump (MCP) but also participate in a myriad of soil mineral carbon pump (MinCP) processes (i.e., the interactions between lysate DOM and minerals, including adsorption, occlusion, aggregation, redox reactions and polymerization). “Integrating soil viruses into existing MCP and MinCP models, namely virus-MCP and virus-MinCP, will be a landmark achievement in elucidating the role of viruses in driving biogeochemical cycles.” Jianming says.
At last, they pointed out several frontiers in the study of viruses, such as finding some viral biomarkers, quantifying the contribution of viruses to the elemental cycle, and determining an effective method to distinguish soil viruses in the lytic versus lysogenic cycle.
This highlights a new research frontier to quantify the impact of viruses on elemental cycling and develop an understanding of how viruses drive organismal-elemental interactions with abiotic properties, adding a new dimension to the global environmental cycling of carbon and nutrients.
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See the article:
Element cycling by environmental viruses
https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwae459
National Science Review