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BG6.2 | Geovirology: Environmental viruses and their impacts on biogeochemistry, microbial ecology and ecosystem health
EDI
Geovirology: Environmental viruses and their impacts on biogeochemistry, microbial ecology and ecosystem health
Convener: Ella SieradzkiECSECS | Co-conveners: Alexander Probst, Ulisses Nunes da RochaECSECS
Viruses significantly affect microbially-controlled global biogeochemical cycles and are an integral part of the One Health and the EcoHealth concept as they affect plant, animal, and human health. While human pathogenic viruses are likely the most famous of the lot, the vast majority of environmental viruses target bacterial or archaeal hosts (bacteriophages). These viruses may be strictly lethal to their hosts, but other viral life strategies such as lysogeny, pseudolysogeny and chronic infections have also been identified for bacteriophages and archaeal viruses. Some phages were shown to influence their host metabolism, i.e., turning them into a virocell. The ecophysiology and the functioning of virocells across the tree of life are still one of the blank spots in viral ecology. Many phages also carry auxiliary metabolic genes, horizontally transferred from their hosts, which may substantially bolster host metabolism, likely facilitating viral fitness. Despite repeated identification of such genes in prokaryotic viruses from various environments, the only evidence of the functionality of these genes comes from aquatic environments.
We welcome contributions on environmental viruses with the potential to affect biogeochemical cycles or ecosystem health across spatial or temporal scales in a variety of environments, including soil, sediments, aqueous systems, air, extreme environments, and constructed systems.