First compelling evidence of organisms that eat viruses as a food source
Eat or be eaten: It’s an edict of Mother Nature that connects every corner of the biosphere in a sprawling web of producers, consumers, detritivores, and scavengers.
Every corner but one, it seems. Just what the hell dines on viruses?
Scientists may have just discovered the answer.
Given the fact that the viral biomass dusting our landscape, drifting through the atmosphere, and floating in our oceans could easily add up to tens of millions of tonnes of carbon, there’s a surprising absence of life making a meal of this bounty.
If we’re to be technical, there are viruses that have evolved to compete with other viruses by robbing them of their organic building blocks.
But until now, there hasn’t been any strong evidence of an organism engulfing and digesting virion particles for energy or their elemental nutrients.
Two types of single-celled organisms found drifting in the waters of the Gulf of Maine off North America’s coast just might be the first true virophages known to science.
Researchers identified the virus grazers after sifting nearly 1,700 plankton cells collected from the waters of the gulf and the Mediterranean Sea, and amplifying the DNA inside each and every one to create individualised genomic libraries. [Continue reading…]