Algal Viruses Diversity
A special issue of Diversity (ISSN 1424-2818). This special issue belongs to the section "Microbial Diversity and Culture Collections".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 August 2020) | Viewed by 2873
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Most of us will agree by now that viruses are the most abundant biological entities on Earth. Within viruses, research on algal viruses has gained momentum in recent years, revealing remarkable morphological and phenotypic virion characteristics, and an enormous genetic and metabolic diversity harboured within viral genomes. Importantly, algal viruses are now recognised as major players in global ecological, biogeochemical and co-evolutionary processes. Further, although most of the genes in algal viruses are with an unknown as of yet function, in some viruses, genes involved in specific metabolic pathways such as lipid and carbohydrate biosynthesis have been identified. In addition, a relatively recent and exciting field of research now also focuses on the applied potential of algal viruses, specifically as it relates to harmful algal blooms.
The diversity of algal viruses goes beyond their genetic and metabolic potential. They are diverse with regards to the habitat that they are associated with (i.e., marine, freshwater, and terrestrial), and the host organism that they infect; from small microalgae such as coccolithophores, diatoms, and chlorella, to large, habitat-forming macroalgae such as seaweeds and kelps.
To a large extent, many of the recent discoveries in environmental virology are made possible because of advances in next-generation sequencing technologies and bioinformatics methods, which allow for direct sequencing of novel viruses from their natural environment. This expands the knowledge we have gained traditionally from sequencing the genomes of virus isolates in culture.
This Special Issue provides a platform to highlight recent breakthroughs in our understanding of algal virus diversity, in either ecologically important model systems studied in the laboratory or algal viruses studied in their natural or seminatural setting. Research on the diversity of novel, recently discovered algal viruses is particularly welcomed.
Dr. Jozef I. Nissimov
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- Algal viruses
- Genetic diversity
- Functional diversity
- Metabolic diversity
- Marine
- Freshwater
- Terrestrial
- Co-evolution
- Horizontal gene transfer
- Auxiliary metabolic genes
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