Arctic Ocean virus communities and their seasonality, bipolarity, and prokaryotic associations

Alyzza M. Calayag, Taylor Priest, Ellen Oldenburg, Jan Muschiol, Ovidiu Popa, Matthias Wietz and David M. Needham ()
Additional contact information
Alyzza M. Calayag: GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel
Taylor Priest: ETH Zurich
Ellen Oldenburg: Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research
Jan Muschiol: GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel
Ovidiu Popa: Heinrich Heine University
Matthias Wietz: Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research
David M. Needham: GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Abstract Viruses of microbes play important roles in ocean environments as agents of mortality and genetic transfer, influencing ecology, evolution and biogeochemistry. However, we know little about the diversity, seasonality, and host interactions of viruses in polar waters. Here, we study dsDNA viruses in the Arctic Fram Strait across four years via 47 long-read metagenomes of the cellular size-fraction. Among 5662 vOTUs, 98% and 2% are Caudoviricetes and Megaviricetes, respectively. Viral coverage is, on average, 5-fold higher than cellular coverage, and 8-fold higher in summer. Viral community composition shows annual peaks in similarity and strongly correlates with prokaryotic community composition. Using network analysis, we identify putative virus-host interactions and six ecological modules associated with distinct environmental conditions. The network reveals putative novel cyanophages with time-lagged correlations to their hosts (in late summer) as well as diverse viruses correlated with Flavobacteriaceae, Pelagibacteraceae, and Nitrosopumilaceae. Via global metagenomes, we find that 42% of Fram Strait vOTUs peak in abundance in high latitude regions of both hemispheres, and encode proteins with biochemical signatures of cold adaptation. Our study reveals a rich diversity of polar viruses with pronounced seasonality, providing a foundation for understanding viral regulation and ecosystem impacts in changing polar oceans.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-61568-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-61568-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-61568-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().