Viruses are key members of Earth's microbiomes, shaping microbial community composition
and metabolism. Here, we describe recent advances in'soil viromics', that is, virus-focused …

Until recently, the evolutionary relationships between marine and freshwater microbes were
unclear, but the use of molecular phylogenies is beginning to shed light on this subject. An …

Viruses shape microbial community structure and function by altering the fitness of their
hosts and by promoting genetic exchange. The complexity of most natural ecosystems has …

Phages are considered the most abundant and diverse biological entities on Earth and are
notable not only for their sheer abundance, but also for their influence on bacterial hosts. In …

Hypersaline environments are dominated by archaea and bacteria and are almost entirely
devoid of eukaryotic organisms. In addition, hypersaline environments contain considerable …

Since their discovery in the early 1980s, viruses that infect the third domain of life, the
Archaea, have captivated our attention because of their virions' unusual morphologies and …

Viruses are a driving force of microbial evolution. Despite their importance, the evolutionary
dynamics that shape diversity in viral populations are not well understood. One of the …

Viruses populate virtually every ecosystem on the planet, including the extreme acidic,
thermal, and saline environments where archaeal organisms can dominate. For example …

Advances in molecular technologies and automated instrumentation have provided many
opportunities for improved detection and identification of microorganisms; however, the …

Little is known about the infection cycles of viruses infecting cells from Archaea, the third
domain of life. Here, we demonstrate that the virions of the archaeal Sulfolobus islandicus …