Microbes play important roles in ecosystems, and these roles are changing with global warming. Scientists now also know that most types of microbes are infected by viruses, but they know relatively little about how these viral infections might change the way microbes react to warming. In this study, the scientists describe many different ways that rising temperatures could affect viruses and their microbial hosts. These changes could ultimately affect the responses of entire ecosystems to warming. The work exposes several important gaps in researchers’ current knowledge about the connections between viruses, warming, and ecosystem functioning. Filling these gaps is crucial to understanding and predicting the effects of climate change on ecosystems.
This study creates a roadmap for understanding the many different ways that viruses could modify the effects of warming on communities of microbes. Viruses are likely to have strong effects on processes with microbes and the way ecosystems function. Incorporating these previously ignored effects into ecosystem models will help scientists improve their predictions about how ecosystems might respond to climate change.
Microorganisms play integral roles in ecosystems by controlling the flow of energy and matter through processes such as photosynthesis (carbon uptake), respiration (carbon release), and decomposition (carbon recycling). Climate change is currently altering the functioning of ecosystems by changing the way organisms operate within microbial food webs. Scientists know that viruses can have strong impacts on microbial processes, but have less understanding of how these impacts will change with future warming.
In this study, scientists from Duke University, the University of Tennessee Knoxville, the Netherlands Institute of Ecology, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory reviewed the potential impacts of warming on viruses and how these could alter scientific understanding of viruses. ecosystem responses to climate change. Warming is likely to affect several different stages of the viral infection cycle, as well as virus-host dynamics. However, there are still many gaps in our understanding of these effects. Because viruses are ubiquitous in all habitats and have strong effects on microbial functioning, filling in these gaps is critical to understanding how warming will affect the flow of energy and matter within ecosystems. The researchers’ preliminary models show that viruses could potentially tip the balance in natural carbon balances, turning some ecosystems from net carbon sources (releasing more carbon than they store) to net carbon sinks (absorbing more carbon). carbon). This study shows how the incorporation of viruses in predictive models can generate new and unexpected effects in ecosystems in response to climate change.
This work was supported by the Environmental, Biological and Research program of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
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