Seminar: Environmental viruses in biogeochemical cycles

Abstract: Viruses are the most abundant and diverse biological entities on Earth and can have a profound effect on biogeochemical cycles. Viruses can also affect their host’s metabolism during infection through expression of horizontally transferred host metabolic genes. While viruses in the ocean have been studied for over two decades, viral ecology and its impacts have been neglected in soil, where viruses may actually have a beneficial role in the carbon cycle. I will present several of my studies that show how viruses in the ocean and in soil may affect their environment as well as ours through expression of metabolic genes and host-specific mortality. I’ll also discuss the current field status of soil viral ecology, and my future vision for this nascent field.