Microbes play important roles in ecosystems, and these roles are changing with global warming. Scientists also now know that most types of microbes are infected by viruses, but they know relatively little about how these viral infections might alter the microbes’ response to warming.
In this study, the researchers describe many different ways that rising temperatures could affect viruses and their microbial hosts. These changes could ultimately affect the responses of entire ecosystems to warming.
The work reveals several important gaps in researchers’ current knowledge about the links between viruses, warming and ecosystem functioning. Filling these gaps is critical to understanding and predicting the impacts of climate change on ecosystems.
This study creates a blueprint for understanding the many different ways viruses could modify the effects of warming on microbial communities. Viruses are likely to have a strong influence on microbial processes and the way ecosystems function.
Incorporating these previously ignored effects into ecosystem models will help scientists improve their predictions of how ecosystems might respond to climate change.
In this study, researchers from Duke University, the University of Tennessee Knoxville, the Netherlands Ecology Institute and Oak Ridge National Laboratory reviewed the potential effects of warming on viruses and how they could change the scientific understanding of ecosystem responses to climate change.
Microorganisms play an integral role in ecosystems by controlling the flow of energy and matter through processes such as photosynthesis (carbon absorption), respiration (carbon release) and decomposition (carbon recycling).
Climate change is currently altering the functioning of ecosystems by altering the way organisms function in microbial food webs. Scientists know that viruses can have a strong impact on microbial processes, but they have less knowledge about how those impacts will change with future warming.
Warming is likely to affect several different phases of the virus infection cycle, as well as virus-host dynamics. However, there are still many gaps in our understanding of these effects. Because viruses are ubiquitous in all habitats and have powerful effects on microbial functioning, filling these gaps is critical to understanding how warming will affect the flow of energy and matter in ecosystems.
The researchers’ preliminary models show that viruses could potentially tip the scales in the natural carbon balance, causing some ecosystems to switch from net carbon sinks (releasing more carbon than they store) to net carbon sinks (absorbing carbon). This study shows how incorporating viruses into predictive models can lead to new and unexpected effects on ecosystems in response to climate change.
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