Project description
The hidden role of viruses in soil carbon sequestration
Soil acts as a vital carbon sink, with organic carbon often stored by binding to minerals. Surprisingly, microbial debris, a key component of long-term mineral-associated carbon, results largely from viral activity. Viruses that infect soil microorganisms break host cells, creating this debris and influencing carbon sequestration. Yet, their role remains absent from carbon flux models. The ERC-funded MeMori project aims to fill this gap by investigating soil viruses, particularly those infecting drought-resilient Actinobacteriota. Through microbiology and bioinformatics, it will analyse viral infection rates and mortality across soil types and seasons. This groundbreaking research will refine carbon flux models, offering new insights into the contribution of viruses to global carbon cycles.
Objective
Atmospheric CO2 levels are affected by sources (industrial processes, respiration) and sinks (carbon fixation, storage of organic carbon). Viruses that infect microorganisms may play an important role in soil carbon sink properties. In soil, carbon is stored, or sequestered, by binding to minerals. Recent studies show that long-term mineral-associated matter is mostly microbial debris, and its fraction out of soil organic carbon varies by soil type. Hence, viruses that break microbial host cells create microbial debris and contribute to carbon sequestration in soil, yet are missing from carbon flux models.
We lack fundamental information about the physiology of soil viruses to link viral lysis of microbes and soil carbon sequestration. Recently, we provided the first estimate of microbial mortality by viruses during soil re-wetting after the dry season, a peak time of carbon flux. Our study estimated mortality of up to 46% of cells within a week.
The main knowledge gaps preventing better accuracy of mortality estimates are the average number of viruses produced per host cell and infection rates year-round. I propose to address these gaps using a combination of classic microbiology and cutting-edge bioinformatics.
This project will: (1) generate physiological constraints for soil viral mortality across soil types with different amounts of microbial debris, and (2) establish a multi-year monthly time-series of viral infection dynamics of soil microorganisms. I will focus on soil viruses infecting Actinobacteriota, an abundant phylum of drought-resilient soil bacteria that experiences consistently high viral infection rates. A time-series of viral activity will place the culture-based physiological parameters within the context of spatiotemporal dynamics of the entire viral community.
This project will create an unprecedented ability to estimate the potential contribution of viruses to soil carbon sequestration and incorporate it into global carbon flux models.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- social sciencessociologydemographymortality
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologybacteriology
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologyvirology
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinephysiology
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Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
8000 Aarhus C
Denmark