Thomas Harwood

Abstract Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is a central component of Earth’s carbon cycle and one of the planet’s most chemically diverse pools, yet the molecular structures of its constituents remain largely unresolved. This limitation has hindered our ability to link DOM composition to microbial processes and ecosystem function.

1 Introduction It is well established in marine environments that predation by bacteriophage (phage), viruses that infect and replicate within bacterial cells, can have ecologically important impacts on the infected host ‘virocell’ metabolism (Clokie et al. 2011; Howard-Varona et al. 2020). Furthermore, the ‘viral shunt and shuttle’ of released nutrients from the phage-lysed bacterial cells can significantly contribute to marine nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) cycling (Gobler et al.

Abstract Bacteriophages impact soil bacteria through lysis, altering the availability of organic carbon and plant nutrients. However, the magnitude of nutrient uptake by plants from lysed bacteria remains unknown, partly because this process is challenging to investigate in the field.