[ISME Communications] Microbial biogeography has recently attracted significant attention for its potential to provide novel ecological and evolutionary insights, with environmental connectivity emerging as a key factor in the global distribution of viruses and their hosts.
Hypersaline systems, due to their geographical isolation and extreme conditions, are typically expected to exhibit low connectivity. However, reports of similar viral assemblages in geographically distant hypersaline environments suggest a higher level of connectivity than previously assumed, although the mechanisms underlying viral dispersal remain poorly understood.
We hypothesized that seawater facilitates the dispersal of halophilic viruses (haloviruses). To test the hypothesis, we analyzed twenty hypersaline water samples from globally distributed sites across four continents and constructed “The Global Halophilic Virome Dataset” (GHV), containing 10 705 viral Operational Taxonomic Units (vOTUs). Additionally, we proposed a sample-adapted threshold to distinguish between “abundant” and “rare” members of the virosphere.
Our findings indicate that coastal hypersaline systems harbor highly similar viral communities, whereas inland systems are dominated by endemic vOTUs, and that seawater may act as the primary carrier of halovirus dispersal. Infection strategies also varied across environments, with coastal salterns showing a lower potential for viral infection and a higher percentage of viruses with a potential integrative temperate lifestyle.
Connectivity of the viral community between sampling sites. In the networks, vertex represents sampling sites, whereas edges (arrows) indicate connected sites based on the percentage of the community shared (panel titles). A range of thresholds from 10% to 50% shared community were applied (see panels A–E). The direction of the arrow indicates the direction of the comparison. For example, in panel A, an arrow is displayed from sample LV1 to sample LV2 indicating that 10% of the total vOTUs present in LV1 are also detected in LV2. In addition, another arrow from LV2 to LV1 is also shown, indicating that the opposite is also true, that is, >10% of the vOTUs in LV2 are present in LV1. Note the high connectivity among coastal sites, whereas inland are more isolated (except CC and CG). — [ISME Communications]
- Dispersal pathways and infection strategies within the Global Halophilic Virome, ISME Communications via PubMed
- Dispersal pathways and infection strategies within the Global Halophilic Virome, ISME Communications (open access)
Astrobiology,
