Chinese scholars have made progress in the study of the response of soil virus communities to land use patterns

Figure Response of soil viral communities to land use patterns

With the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number: 42177097, 42021005), the team of academician Zhu Yongguan of the Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences has made progress
in the field of soil virus research.
The research results, entitled "Response of soil viral communities to land use changes", were published on October 12, 2022 in Nature · Nature Communications, paper link: _istranslated="1">.

Viruses are the most diverse and abundant biological entities on Earth
.
At present, the research of environmental viromics is mainly focused on the water environment, such as oceans and rivers
.
Due to the high complexity of the soil environment, there is currently a lack
of understanding of soil viruses.
Rapid urbanization has led to a reduction in the area of agricultural land and affected natural landscapes
such as woodlands and grasslands.
The effects of land-use changes on the diversity, function and interrelationships of soil bacteria, fungi and soil fauna have been reported, but the response of soil viruses to land-use changes remains unclear
.

In order to explore the response of soil virus communities to changes in land use types in the process of rapid urbanization, the research team collected soil samples from five different use modes in Xiamen, Fujian Province, including forests, farmland, vegetable fields, parks and green belts, and analyzed their viral and bacterial communities by using viromics and metagenomics techniques, obtained nearly 60,000 new soil virus population information, and found that the influence of land use on soil virus community structure is greater than that of spatial heterogeneity.
And pH is an important environmental factor driving the change of soil virus community structure.
It was revealed that changes in land use patterns affect the lifestyle of soil virus communities and change the virus-bacteria host interaction pattern, while leading to the differentiation of soil virus niches, which in turn drives the evolution of soil virus communities (Fig).

This study expands the understanding of soil virus diversity, provides a new perspective for the comprehensive analysis of soil microbial response to human activities, and provides a theoretical basis
for the inclusion of soil viruses into biogeochemical cycle models.