A virovore (also sometimes referred to as virivore) is an organism that eats viruses.
A
new discovery that has been carried out by the team lead by John DeLong, a
microbiologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the USA suggest that
two plankton organisms namely Halteria and Paramecium can thrive when they are
being fed on viruses. Both these ciliate protists were obtained from pond waters
and later being studied in their lab. Their peer-reviewed findings were published in
a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
in December 27, 2022.
It was only two years ago that scientists found viral genes in the genomes of marine protists, indicating that protists likely ingested viral matter. But direct consumption was not observed, until now. If Halteria and Paramecium are the first discovered virovores, they are probably not the only one as millions of them are yet to be discovered. Scientifically, this is a first that changes the way we view viruses: from pathogens agents to key elements of the food web. It could also change the way we evaluate carbon cycle, which viruses can influence massively.
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