We commonly acknowledge that bacterial viruses (phages) shape the composition and
evolution of bacterial communities in nature and therefore have important roles in ecosystem …

Recent advances in viral metagenomics have enabled the rapid discovery of an
unprecedented catalogue of phages in numerous environments, from the human gut to the …

A census of the biomass on Earth is key for understanding the structure and dynamics of the
biosphere. However, a global, quantitative view of how the biomass of different taxa …

The human gut microbiome is a dense and taxonomically diverse consortium of
microorganisms. While the bacterial components of the microbiome have received …

Viruses numerically dominate our oceans; however, we have only just begun to document
the diversity, host range and infection dynamics of marine viruses, as well as the subsequent …

The number and diversity of viral sequences that are identified in metagenomic data far
exceeds that of experimentally characterized virus isolates. In a recent workshop, a panel of …

Bacteriophages (phages) are often described as obligate predators of their bacterial hosts,
and phage predation is one of the leading forces controlling the density and distribution of …

The number of virus particles on Earth is frequently reported in the scientific literature and in
general-interest publications as being on the order of 1031, with some confusion about …

Prokaryotes have numerous mobile genetic elements (MGEs) that mediate horizontal gene
transfer (HGT) between cells. These elements can be costly, even deadly, and cells use …

Viruses that infect bacteria (phages) can influence bacterial community dynamics, bacterial
genome evolution and ecosystem biogeochemistry. These influences differ depending on …