r types of organic and inorganic pools? Multi-scale mathematical methods can help infer viral effects at large scale based on cellular level interactions. Finally, there is a growing emphasis on the quantification of genomic and transcriptomic diversity within ocean microbes. However, predicting ecosystem-level effects of viruses of microbes requires quantitative estimates of rates and interactions coinciding with genomic and transcriptomic surveys. We hope that future work on viruses of microbes in the oceans includes efforts to combine rates, -omics data and mathematical models in the service of answering a fundamental question: what effects do viruses have on the global earth system?
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Joshua S. Weitz holds a Career Award at the Scientific Interface from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and acknowledges the support of an award from the James S. McDonnell Foundation. Steven W. Wilhelm acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation, Division of Biological and Chemical Oceanography and the Division of Environmental Biology. This work was conducted as a part of the Ocean Viral Dynamics Working Group at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture through NSF Award #EF-0832858, with additional support from The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
|1||Mann NH: The third age of phage. PLoS biology. 2005, 3(5):753–5.|
|2||Wommack KE, Colwell RR: Virioplankton: viruses in aquatic ecosystems. Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews. 2000, 64(1):69–113.|
|3||Brussaard C, Wilhelm SW, Thingstad F, Weinbauer MG, Bratbak G, Heldal M, Kimmance SA, Middelboe M, Nagasaki K, Paul JH, Schroeder DC, Suttle CA, Vaqué D, Wommack KE: Global-scale processes with a nanoscale drive: the role of marine viruses. ISME Journal. 2008, 2(6):575–8.|
|4||Rohwer F, Thurber RV: Viruses manipulate the marine environment. Nature. 2009, 459(7244):207–12.|
|5||Suttle CA: Viruses in the sea. Nature. 2005, 437(7057):356–61.|
|6||Suttle CA: Marine viruses - major players in the global ecosystem. Nature Reviews Microbiology. 2007, 5(10):801–12.|
|7||Thurber RV: Current insights into phage biodiversity and biogeography. Current Opinion in Microbiology. 2009, 12(5):582–7.|
|8||Wilhelm SW, Suttle CA: Viruses and nutrient cycles in the sea - viruses play critical roles in the structure and function of aquatic food webs. Bioscience. 1999, 49(10):781–8.|
|9||Viruses of Microbes. http://events.embo.org/12-virus-microbe/|
|10||Aquatic Viral Workshop. http://www.avw6.org/avw6|
|11||Danovaro R, Corinaldesi C, Dell'Anno A, Fuhrman JA, Middelburg JJ, Noble RT, Suttle CA: Marine viruses and global climate change. FEMS Microbiology Reviews. 2011, 35(6):993–1034.|
|12||Edwards RA, Rohwer F: Viral metagenomics. Nature Reviews Microbiology. 2005, 3(6):504–10.|
|13||Sullivan MB, Waterbury JB, Chisholm SW: Cyanophages infecting the oceanic cyanobacteriumProchlorococcus. Nature. 2003, 424(6952):1047–51.|
|14||Photosynthesis genes in marine viruses yield proteins during host infection. Nature. 2005, 438(7064):86–9.|
|15||Transfer of photosynthesis genes to and fromProchlorococcus viruses. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2004, 101(30):11013–8.|
|16||Clokie M, Shan JY, Bailey S, Jia Y, Krisch HM, West S, Mann NH: Transcription of a 'photosynthetic' T4-type phage during infection of a marine cyanobacterium. Environmental Microbiology. 2006, 8(5):827–35.|
|17||Mann NH, Cook A, Millard A, Bailey S, Clokie M: Marine ecosystems: bacterial photosynthesis genes in a virus. Nature. 2003, 424(6950):741–1.|
|18||Derelle E, Ferraz C, Escande ML, Eychenie S, Cooke R, Piganeau G, Desdevises Y, Bellec L, Moreau H, Grimsley N: Life-cycle and genome of OtV5, a large DNA virus of the pelagic marine unicellular green algaOstreococcus tauri. PLoS One. 2008, 3(5):e2250.|
|19||Wilson WH, Schroeder DC, Allen MJ, Holden M, Parkhill J, Barrell BG, Chur