Soil virus life-strategy conversion and implications for ecosystem and soil functions

Both viral abundance and life state vary across contrasting soil environments and are crucial for mediating microbial metabolism and soil functions. Yet, why soil viruses favor the lytic or lysogenic cycle in a given soil environment, and to what extent they affect soil functions, remains unclear. In this review, we constructed a soil virus abundance dataset containing 691 samples, which for the first time included the lysogenic fraction index to quantify the proportion of soil viruses in the lysogenic state. Moreover, we have assessed the distribution and key drivers of soil viral properties based on 21 soil physicochemical indicators. We also systematically summarized three molecular mechanisms regulating viral lysis-lysogenic transformations that are believed to be widespread in soil environments. We propose a conceptual framework for a transition threshold of viral life strategies based on existing experimental evidence. When environmental stress falls below the critical tolerance l..., , # Soil virus life-strategy conversion and implications for ecosystem and soil functions

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.jdfn2z3px](10.5061/dryad.jdfn2z3px)

## Description of the data and file structure

**Data collection**

An extensive literature search was conducted in the Web-of-Science database collecting citations up to September 2023 using the keywords: \"soil or terrestrial\" and \"phage or bacteriophage or virus or virocell or lysogeny\" and \"virus abundance or virus-to-microbial cell ratio or virus-to-prokaryote ratio or virus-to-bacterium ratio or VPR or VBR or VMR\". Related literature was also collected from the references contained within the acquired publications. The resulting 207 publications were further filtered according to the following criteria: (1) only papers containing absolute abundance of soil viruses were selected; studies with relative abundance by bioinformatic analysis were excluded; (2) only viruses in field soils were selected, and articles quantifying single mo..., ,