Viruses aren’t all bad: In the ocean, some help fuel the food web – a new study shows how |
Virus. The word evokes images of illness and fears of outbreaks. Yet, in the oceans, not all viruses are bad news.
Some play a helpful, even critical, role in sustaining marine life.
In a new study, we and an international team of scientists examined the behavior of marine viruses in a large band of oxygen-rich water just under the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. What we discovered there – and its role in the food web – shows marine viruses in a new light.
Viruses are incredibly small, typically no more than tens of nanometers in diameter, nearly a hundred times smaller than a bacterium and more than a thousand times smaller than the width of a strand of hair.
In fact, viruses are so small that they cannot be seen using conventional microscopes.
Decades ago, scientists thought that marine viruses were neither abundant nor ecologically relevant, despite the clear relevance of viruses to humans, plants and animals.
Then, advances in the use of transmission electron microscopes in the late 1980s changed everything. Scientists were able to examine sea water at a very high magnification and saw tiny,........