Human Body to Water Reservoirs: Estimating Viral Population Characteristics Using High-Throughput Sequencing

Abstract

The behavior of bacteria and viruses, as opposed to individual organisms, is key to understanding their impact on biological and ecological systems. Emergence of this concept opened new avenues in the field of microbial genetics, as scientists started looking at the microbial and viral world from the point of view of population genetics.The composition (number, type, and relative abundance of species), functional characteristics, inter- and intraspecies interactions, and evolutionary characteristics of a viral population are topics of highest interest in the field of metagenomics. Current research findings support the importance of studying viruses as populations rather than as individuals.C..