An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Atlas: Name a type of organic matter and chances are some type of organism has evolved to eat it. Plants, meat, algae, insects and bacteria are all consumed by different creatures, but now scientists have discovered something new on the menu — viruses. Since viruses are found absolutely everywhere, it’s inevitable that organisms will consume them incidentally. But researcher John DeLong at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln wanted to find out if any microbes actively ate viruses, and whether such a diet could support the physiological growth of individuals and the population growth of a community. “They’re made up of really good stuff: nucleic acids, a lot of nitrogen and phosphorous,” said DeLong. “Everything should want to eat them. So many things will eat anything they can get ahold of. Surely something would have learned how to eat these really good raw materials.”
These experiments show that the newly coined term “virovory” can now take its place among herbivory, carnivory et al, with Halteria crowned the first known virovore. But of course, it’s unlikely to be the only one out there, and the researchers plan to continue investigating the phenomenon, including its effects on food webs and larger systems like the carbon cycle. The research was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
