New paper in Science from Guillermo, Ahmed and team!
A new paper from Guillermo Dominguez-Huerta and Ahmed Zayed entitled “Diversity and ecological footprint of Global Ocean RNA viruses” has just been published in Science. If the previous study in Zayed et al. (2022) was about the taxonomic and evolutionary consequences of the 5,505 new marine RNA viruses, this second paper brings patterns and predictors of diversity to contextualize the influence of those viruses on Global Ocean ecosystem. Like dsDNA viruses and their hosts, RNA viruses showed being limited by depth rather than latitude. Their influence on ocean food webs and biogeochemical cycling appears to be large since they infect ecologically important hosts (mostly protists and fungi), their genomes can carry auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs) that putatively manipulate diverse host metabolims (such as photosynthesis), and their abundances predict carbon export. The paper has been featured in several outreach platforms, including NewScientist, Axios, and the official OSU press release team.(Blog text credit: Dr. Guillermo Dominguez Huerta).
Access the paper for free using this link.
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