[Nature] Ocean hydrothermal vents constitute chemically driven oases of life that fundamentally differ from photosynthesis-based ecosystems.
Editor’s note: When we start to mount Astrobiology missions to explore ocean worlds we’ll need ways for our robotic submersibles to observe and interact with whatever life forms they may encounter. It is highly probable that we will discover life that is both similar and utterly different than Earth life. This is especially important in ‘extreme’ environments on out home world where old notions of life have been totally revised – in many cases revealing possible avenues for its origin on Earth.The better that we learn how to catalog the immense diversity of life here – the better prepared we will be to embark on a similar task on other inhabited worlds.Recognized as one of Earth’s most extreme environments, they serve as key systems for investigating the origins of life.
To elucidate the still poorly understood diversity of viruses and virus–host interactions in these settings, we analyzed 405 globally distributed metagenomic samples from ocean hydrothermal systems across seven habitat types and depths ranging from 0 to 5000 m.
From these data, we constructed the Global Ocean Hydrothermal Vent Virus Genome Dataset (VentVirGenomes), which comprises 392,166 viral contigs and 332,833 viral operational taxonomic units (vOTUs).
Taxonomic classification at the realm level could be estimated for 68.37% of these vOTUs, with Caudoviricetes representing the dominant class. Furthermore, we identified 79,317 predicted virus-host linkages.
The VentVirGenomes provides a foundational resource for advancing research into the diversity, evolution, and ecological functions of viral and microbial communities within global hydrothermal vent ecosystems.
- Global Ocean Hydrothermal Vent Virus Dataset (VentVirGenomes), NIH/NLM
- Supporting Materials for Manuscript: VentVirGenomes: A Global Ocean Hydrothermal Vent Virus Genome Dataset for Exploring Diversity, Function, and Host Interactions, GitHub
- VentVirGenomes: A Global Ocean Hydrothermal Vent Virus Genome Dataset for Exploring Diversity, Function, and Host Interactions, Nature
Astrobiology, Genomics, Extremophiles, Bioinformatics,
