Title |
Re-examination of the relationship between marine virus and microbial cell abundances
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Published in |
Nature Microbiology, January 2016
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DOI | 10.1038/nmicrobiol.2015.24 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Charles H. Wigington, Derek Sonderegger, Corina P. D. Brussaard, Alison Buchan, Jan F. Finke, Jed A. Fuhrman, Jay T. Lennon, Mathias Middelboe, Curtis A. Suttle, Charles Stock, William H. Wilson, K. Eric Wommack, Steven W. Wilhelm, Joshua S. Weitz |
Abstract |
Marine viruses are critical drivers of ocean biogeochemistry, and their abundances vary spatiotemporally in the global oceans, with upper estimates exceeding 10(8) per ml. Over many years, a consensus has emerged that virus abundances are typically tenfold higher than microbial cell abundances. However, the true explanatory power of a linear relationship and its robustness across diverse ocean environments is unclear. Here, we compile 5,671 microbial cell and virus abundance estimates from 25 distinct marine surveys and find substantial variation in the virus-to-microbial cell ratio, in which a 10:1 model has either limited or no explanatory power. Instead, virus abundances are better described as nonlinear, power-law functions of microbial cell abundances. The fitted scaling exponents are typically less than 1, implying that the virus-to-microbial cell ratio decreases with microbial cell density, rather than remaining fixed. The observed scaling also implies that viral effect sizes derived from 'representative' abundances require substantial refinement to be extrapolated to regional or global scales. |
X Demographics
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
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United States | 18 | 35% |
United Kingdom | 7 | 13% |
Canada | 4 | 8% |
Australia | 2 | 4% |
France | 2 | 4% |
Spain | 1 | 2% |
Chile | 1 | 2% |
South Africa | 1 | 2% |
Switzerland | 1 | 2% |
Other | 4 | 8% |
Unknown | 11 | 21% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Scientists | 30 | 58% |
Members of the public | 21 | 40% |
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 1 | 2% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United States | 2 | <1% |
United Kingdom | 1 | <1% |
France | 1 | <1% |
Canada | 1 | <1% |
Unknown | 362 | 99% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Student > Ph. D. Student | 79 | 22% |
Researcher | 62 | 17% |
Student > Bachelor | 49 | 13% |
Student > Master | 35 | 10% |
Student > Doctoral Student | 15 | 4% |
Other | 50 | 14% |
Unknown | 77 | 21% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 96 | 26% |
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 73 | 20% |
Environmental Science | 47 | 13% |
Immunology and Microbiology | 23 | 6% |
Earth and Planetary Sciences | 14 | 4% |
Other | 22 | 6% |
Unknown | 92 | 25% |