Li Bi

Theme 3

Viromic and metagenomic insights into the diversity and ecological roles of viruses in soils

Viruses are extremely abundant and ubiquitous in the environment, and significantly contribute to various marine ecosystem processes such as biogeochemical nutrient cycling, microbiome community assembly and functional performance, and host evolutionary dynamics. However, whether and how soil viruses have the same role in soil as marine counterparts is poorly understood. Li Bi’s research will use the metagenomic approaches including total soil metagenomes and size-fractionation viral metagenome (virome) to characterize the abundance, diversity and community compositions of viruses, and their interactions with other organisms in the complex soil environment.

Li received a Bachelor of Agricultural Resources and Environment in Huazhong Agricultural University and a Master of Environmental Science at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences. During her masters, her research focused on diversity and potential biogeochemical impacts of viruses in bulk and rhizosphere soils. She has experience in soil macular ecology experiments and bioinformatics for viral metagenomes. She is interested in soil viral ecology and enjoys exploring the unknown diversity and functions of virosphere.