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Bacteriophages are among the most common and diverse entities in the biosphere. [2] Bacteriophages are ubiquitous viruses, found wherever bacteria exist. It is estimated there are more than 10 31 bacteriophages on the planet, more than every other organism on Earth, including bacteria, combined. [3]
Bacteriophages , potentially the most numerous "organisms" on Earth, are the viruses of bacteria (more generally, of prokaryotes [1]). Phage ecology is the study of the interaction of bacteriophages with their environments .
Transmission electron micrograph of multiple bacteriophages attached to a bacterial cell wall. A phageome is a community of bacteriophages and their metagenomes localized in a particular environment, similar to a microbiome. [1] [2] Phageome is a subcategory of virome, which is all of the viruses that are associated with a host or environment. [3]
A prophage is a bacteriophage (often shortened to "phage") genome that is integrated into the circular bacterial chromosome or exists as an extrachromosomal plasmid within the bacterial cell. [1] Integration of prophages into the bacterial host is the characteristic step of the lysogenic cycle of temperate phages.
Bacteriophages are harmless to plants and animals but are essential to the regulation of marine ecosystems. They supply key mechanisms for recycling ocean carbon and nutrients . In a process known as the viral shunt , organic molecules released from dead bacterial cells stimulate fresh bacterial and algal growth.
Bacteriophages, often just called phages, are viruses that parasite bacteria and archaea. Marine phages parasite marine bacteria and archaea, such as cyanobacteria . [ 112 ] They are a common and diverse group of viruses and are the most abundant biological entity in marine environments, because their hosts, bacteria, are typically the ...
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They are found in water, soil, air, as the microbiome of an organism, hot springs and even deep beneath the Earth's crust in rocks. [48] The number of prokaryotes is estimated to be around five nonillion, or 5 × 10 30 , accounting for at least half the biomass on Earth.