Virome analysis of paddy floodwater in two cropping seasons

Abstract

Paddy fields include two interconnected ecosystems-soil and floodwater. Microbes and viruses are an integral component of these ecosystems, yet the viral communities have not been extensively studied. We present an analysis of the viromes of paddy floodwater collected during the two cropping seasons in India, the kharif and rabi seasons respectively. The overall taxonomic and functional characteristics appeared to be similar in both seasons, suggesting stability of the viral community. Taxonomically, the families of tailed bacteriophages dominated. The predominance of functional roles related to lytic phages further confirmed this. We reconstructed two complete and several partial viral genomes from the assembled data. The genomes did not align with any known sequences, thus representing novel viruses of the floodwater ecosystem.