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Viruses in the sea

Nature volume 437, pages 356–361 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

Viruses exist wherever life is found. They are a major cause of mortality, a driver of global geochemical cycles and a reservoir of the greatest genetic diversity on Earth. In the oceans, viruses probably infect all living things, from bacteria to whales. They affect the form of available nutrients and the termination of algal blooms. Viruses can move between marine and terrestrial reservoirs, raising the spectre of emerging pathogens. Our understanding of the effect of viruses on global systems and processes continues to unfold, overthrowing the idea that viruses and virus-mediated processes are sidebars to global processes.

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Figure 1: The three families of tailed dsDNA viruses (phages) that infect bacteria.
Figure 2: The nuclear inclusion virus of Heterosigma akashiwo.
Figure 3: Viruses are catalysts for biogeochemical cycling.
Figure 4: Viruses can affect the efficiency of the biological pump.

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Acknowledgements

I have an unrepayable debt of gratitude to L. M. Proctor and J. A. Fuhrman for introducing me to the world of viruses in the ocean and how to study them, and to A. M. Chan for her critical attention to detail and scientific excellence. In addition, I have been fortunate to have been continuously educated by the many scientific colleagues that have chosen to work in my laboratory over the years, and contributed to a rich and stimulating environment. I thank R. G. Hendrix of PBI for the idea of scaling viral abundance to planetary proportions, and giving permission to use the idea in this paper. Finally, I apologize for all the excellent scientific contributions that I have been unable to include in this abbreviated format.

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  1. Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley and the Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, 94720, California, USA

    Curtis A. Suttle

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Suttle, C. Viruses in the sea. Nature 437, 356–361 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04160

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