ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Virus decomposition provides an important contribution to benthic deep-sea ecosystem functioning.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers.
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Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 91 citations in OpenAlex.
- Microbial decomposer diversity and metabolic function during the decomposition of brine shrimp carcasses in a saline lake.Microbiome · 2026Article
- Marine bacteria degrade viral particles as a source of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur-rich dissolved organic matter.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Depth-driven decline in viral diversity unveils potential novel viruses in global deep-sea ecosystems.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2025Article
- Viruses are a key regulator of the microbial carbon cycle in the deep-sea biosphere.Environmental science and ecotechnology · 2025Article
- The Expanding Diversity of Viruses from Extreme Environments.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Environmental viromes reveal the global distribution signatures of deep-sea DNA viruses.Journal of advanced research · 2024Article
- Survival of surface bacteriophages and their hosts inMicrobiology spectrum · 2024Article
- Viral Diversity in Benthic Abyssal Ecosystems: Ecological and Methodological Considerations.Viruses · 2023Article
- Viral but not bacterial community successional patterns reflect extreme turnover shortly after rewetting dry soils.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Article
- The smallest in the deepest: the enigmatic role of viruses in the deep biosphere.National science review · 2023Review
- Ecogenomics reveals viral communities across the Challenger Deep oceanic trench.Communications biology · 2022Article
- Reduced bacterial mortality and enhanced viral productivity during sinking in the ocean.The ISME journal · 2022Article
- Modeling Virus and Bacteria Populations in Europa's Subsurface Ocean.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- An Appraisal of Bacteriophage Isolation Techniques from Environment.Microbial ecology · 2022Review
- Deciphering the Virus Signal Within the Marine Dissolved Organic Matter Pool.Frontiers in microbiology · 2022Article
- The origin and impeded dissemination of the DNA phosphorothioation system in prokaryotes.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Diversity and distribution of viruses inhabiting the deepest ocean on Earth.The ISME journal · 2021Article
- Interannual dynamics, diversity and evolution of the virome inVirus evolution · 2021Article
- Impact of Viral Lysis on the Composition of Bacterial Communities and Dissolved Organic Matter in Deep-Sea Sediments.Viruses · 2020Article
- Viral control of biomass and diversity of bacterioplankton in the deep sea.Communications biology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Viruses are key biological agents of prokaryotic mortality in the world oceans, particularly in deep-sea ecosystems where nearly all of the prokaryotic C production is transformed into organic detritus. However, the extent to which the decomposition of viral particles (i.e., organic material of viral origin) influences the functioning of benthic deep-sea ecosystems remains completely unknown. Here, using various independent approaches, we show that in deep-sea sediments an important fraction of viruses, once they are released by cell lysis, undergo fast decomposition. Virus decomposition rates in deep-sea sediments are high even at abyssal depths and are controlled primarily by the extracellular enzymatic activities that hydrolyze the proteins of the viral capsids. We estimate that on a global scale the decomposition of benthic viruses releases ∼37-50 megatons of C per year and thus represents an important source of labile organic compounds in deep-sea ecosystems. Organic material released from decomposed viruses is equivalent to 3 ± 1%, 6 ± 2%, and 12 ± 3% of the input of photosynthetically produced C, N, and P supplied through particles sinking to bathyal/abyssal sediments. Our data indicate that the decomposition of viruses provides an important, previously ignored contribution to deep-sea ecosystem functioning and has an important role in nutrient cycling within the largest ecosystem of the biosphere.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.