Journey of a Thousand Miles: The Evolution of Our Understanding of Viruses in Hot Deserts

Abstract

Our understanding of soil virus ecology is in its infancy with the first study using modern techniques only published in 2007. Since then, many new tools have been developed and we now have a greater understanding of aquatic and especially marine viral communities, however soil viral communities and in particular those from hot Deserts remain poorly characterized. In this chapter, we explore the evolution of studies describing the diversity and distribution of viruses in hot Deserts both in soils and the water bodies found here and relay the impact researchers think they have on these communities. Although traits common to all Deserts studied are difficult to define, the main finding is that hot Desert soils, as in other soils, are dominated by lysogenic bacteriophages adapted to take advantage of bursts in host metabolic activity following stochastic inputs such as rainfall. In some instances, the physicochemical makeup of these environments appears to play a dominant role in shaping the host and viral communities. The virus–host communities of the few aquatic environments found in hot Deserts reflect the dynamics of better studied aquatic environments; however, they feature an abundance of unique viruses. The hot Desert also has a few microbiological mysteries that need solution such as the absence of cyanobacterial viruses in samples from communities dominated by these bacteria. Far more work is needed to address the nuances of the virus–host interactions in this environment and to understand the drivers of community establishment, development, maturation, and adaptation.