Depth-related variability in viral communities in highly stratied sulphidic mine tailings Shao-Ming Gao Sun Yat-Sen University Axel Schippers Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) Nan Chen Sun Yat-Sen University Yang Yuan Sun Yat-Sen University Miao-Miao Zhang Sun Yat-Sen University Qi Li Sun Yat-Sen University Bin Liao Sun Yat-Sen University Wen-Sheng Shu South China Normal University Li-Nan Huang (
[email protected] ) Sun Yat-Sen University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4881-7920 Research Keywords: Stratied mine tailings, Viruses, Diversity, Functions, Auxiliary metabolic genes Posted Date: December 6th, 2019 DOI: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.2.18336/v1 License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Read Full License Page 1/25 Abstract Background: Recent studies have signicantly expanded our knowledge of viral diversity and functions in the environment. Exploring the ecological relationships between viruses, hosts and the environment is a crucial rst step towards a deeper understanding of the complex and dynamic interplays among them. Results: Here, we obtained extensive 16S rRNA gene amplicon, metagenomics sequencing and geochemical datasets from different depths of two highly stratied sulphidic mine tailings cores with steep geochemical gradients especially pH, and explored how variations in viral community composition and functions were coupled to the co-existing prokaryotic assemblages and the varying environmental conditions. Our data showed that many viruses in the mine tailings represented novel genera, based on gene-sharing networks. Siphoviridae and Myoviridae dominated the classied viruses in the surface tailings and deeper layers, respectively.