ArticleMicrobiome2023
Lower viral evolutionary pressure under stable versus fluctuating conditions in subzero Arctic brines.
Article in Microbiome, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
- Viral genetic diversity and functional potential in polar and subarctic sea ice.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2026Article
- Salinity-driven adaptations and evolution of DNA viruses in estuarine-coastal ecosystems.mSystems · 2026Article
- Diversity and ecological roles of hidden viral players in groundwater microbiomes.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Effects of predatory mite biocontrols on the dispersal of antibiotic resistomes and virulence factors in tea garden soils.Microbiome · 2025Article
- Eco-evolutionary strategies drive viral diversification in nutrient-poor soils across elevation gradients.National science review · 2025Article
- Viral ecogenomics across oxic and anoxic zones of the Yongle Blue Hole.Environmental microbiome · 2025Article
- Temporal dynamics, microdiversity, and ecological functions of viral communities during cyanobacterial blooms in Lake Taihu.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2025Article
- Salinity-driven shifts in estuarine viral community composition and diversity near the Shenzhen coast.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Article
- Temporal turnover of viral biodiversity and functional potential in intertidal wetlands.NPJ biofilms and microbiomes · 2024Article
- Giant viral signatures on the Greenland ice sheet.Microbiome · 2024Article
- Viral potential to modulate microbial methane metabolism varies by habitat.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Hecatomb: an integrated software platform for viral metagenomics.GigaScience · 2024Article
- Viruses in deep-sea cold seep sediments harbor diverse survival mechanisms and remain genetically conserved within species.The ISME journal · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 6 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundClimate change threatens Earth's ice-based ecosystems which currently offer archives and eco-evolutionary experiments in the extreme. Arctic cryopeg brine (marine-derived, within permafrost) and sea ice brine, similar in subzero temperature and high salinity but different in temporal stability, are inhabited by microbes adapted to these extreme conditions. However, little is known about their viruses (community composition, diversity, interaction with hosts, or evolution) or how they might respond to geologically stable cryopeg versus fluctuating sea ice conditions.
resultsWe used long- and short-read viromics and metatranscriptomics to study viruses in Arctic cryopeg brine, sea ice brine, and underlying seawater, recovering 11,088 vOTUs (~species-level taxonomic unit), a 4.4-fold increase of known viruses in these brines. More specifically, the long-read-powered viromes doubled the number of longer (≥25 kb) vOTUs generated and recovered more hypervariable regions by >5-fold compared to short-read viromes. Distribution assessment, by comparing to known viruses in public databases, supported that cryopeg brine viruses were of marine origin yet distinct from either sea ice brine or seawater viruses, while 94% of sea ice brine viruses were also present in seawater. A virus-encoded, ecologically important exopolysaccharide biosynthesis gene was identified, and many viruses (~half of metatranscriptome-inferred "active" vOTUs) were predicted as actively infecting the dominant microbial genera Marinobacter and Polaribacter in cryopeg and sea ice brines, respectively. Evolutionarily, microdiversity (intra-species genetic variations) analyses suggested that viruses within the stable cryopeg brine were under significantly lower evolutionary pressures than those in the fluctuating sea ice environment, while many sea ice brine virus-tail genes were under positive selection, indicating virus-host co-evolutionary arms races.
conclusionsOur results confirmed the benefits of long-read-powered viromics in understanding the environmental virosphere through significantly improved genomic recovery, expanding viral discovery and the potential for biological inference. Evidence of viruses actively infecting the dominant microbes in subzero brines and modulating host metabolism underscored the potential impact of viruses on these remote and underexplored extreme ecosystems. Microdiversity results shed light on different strategies viruses use to evolve and adapt when extreme conditions are stable versus fluctuating. Together, these findings verify the value of long-read-powered viromics and provide foundational data on viral evolution and virus-microbe interactions in Earth's destabilized and rapidly disappearing cryosphere. Video Abstract.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.