Marine protist viruses

Abstract

Viruses are ubiquitous in the sea and one of the important factors affecting the ecology and evolution of marine protists. Although the existence of "protist viruses" was recognized before the 1980s, the knowledge of their physiological, ecological and genetic features has been progressively accumulated during the last quarter of a century, especially for viruses infecting marine microalgae. These novel viruses are highly diverse, which has extended our understanding of the host-virus relationships in many aspects. In this chapter, we discuss what is currently known about viruses infecting marine protists, mainly focusing on microalgae.