Study shows large variability in abundance of viruses that infect ocean microorganisms

Viruses infect more than humans or plants. For microorganisms in the oceans—including those that capture half of the carbon taken out of the atmosphere every day—viruses are a major threat. But a paper to be published Jan. 25, 2016 in the journal Nature Microbiology shows that there's much less certainty about the size of these viral populations than scientists had long believed.