Historically neglected by microbial ecologists, soil viruses are now thought to be critical to global biogeochemical cycles. However, our understanding of their global distribution, activities and interactions with the soil microbiome remains limited. Here we present the Global Soil Virus Atlas, a comprehensive dataset compiled from 2,953 previously sequenced soil metagenomes and composed of 616,935 uncultivated viral genomes and 38,508 unique viral operational taxonomic units. Rarefaction curves from the Global Soil Virus Atlas indicate that most soil viral diversity remains unexplored, further underscored by high spatial turnover and low rates of shared viral operational taxonomic units across samples. By examining genes associated with biogeochemical functions, we also demonstrate the viral potential to impact soil carbon and nutrient cycling. This study represents an extensive characterization of soil viral diversity and provides a foundation for developing testable hypotheses regarding the role of the virosphere in the soil microbiome and global biogeochemistry.

历史上被微生物生态学家忽视的土壤病毒现在被认为对全球生物地球化学循环至关重要。然而，我们对其全球分布、活动以及与土壤微生物组相互作用的了解仍然有限。在这里，我们展示了全球土壤病毒图谱，这是一个综合数据集，由 2,953 个先前测序的土壤宏基因组编译而成，由 616,935 个未培养的病毒基因组和 38,508 个独特的病毒操作分类单元组成。全球土壤病毒图谱的稀疏曲线表明，大多数土壤病毒多样性仍未被探索，样本间高空间周转率和低共享病毒操作分类单元率进一步强调了这一点。通过检查与生物地球化学功能相关的基因，我们还证明了病毒影响土壤碳和养分循环的潜力。这项研究代表了土壤病毒多样性的广泛特征，并为制定有关病毒圈在土壤微生物组和全球生物地球化学中的作用的可检验假设奠定了基础。