EcoVisionary

E nvironmental viromics is an emerging interdisciplinary field that investigates the diversity, distribution, evolution, ecological roles, and functional significance of viruses in natural and human-influenced environments using culture-independent genomic technologies. Unlike traditional virology, which primarily focuses on viruses associated with diseases in humans, animals, or plants, environmental viromics seeks to understand the vast viral communities that inhabit every ecosystem on Earth. By analyzing viral nucleic acids directly from environmental samples such as seawater, freshwater, soil, sediments, wastewater, air, glaciers, and extreme habitats, environmental viromics has transformed our understanding of viruses from simple pathogens into fundamental drivers of ecosystem function, microbial evolution, and global biogeochemical cycles. For decades, viruses were perceived almost exclusively as infectious agents responsible for diseases ranging from influenza and rabies to HIV...