Recently, the T4-type phage communities in seven locations in a black soil region in Northeast (NE) China were investigated, and different assemblages ofg23 sequences from T4-type bacteriophages were observed. The result was released by Professor WANG Guanghua, Deputy Chief of Key Laboratory of Mollisols Agroecology, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his group.

Bacteriophages (phages) are ubiquitous and more abundant than their hosts, genetic information on their environmental distribution is limited(Weinbauer and Rassoulzadegan, 2004; Paul and Sullivan, 2005; Filée et al., 2005), especially in soil environments (Kimura et al., 2008; Srinivasiah et al. 2008). Based on an analysis of the sequences of the major capsid protein genes (g23), Filée et al. (2005) first reported that marine waters contain a large number of previously unknown groups of T4-type phages, and subsequent studies have revealed the diversity of g23 sequences present in various environments, including lake waters (López-Bueno et al., 2009; Butina et al., 2010), paddy fields soils (Jia et al., 2007; Fujii et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2009a, b) and an upland black soil (classified as Mollisol) (Wang et al., 2011). In paddy fields, T4-type phages were shown to be quite distinct from those in marine environments and were classified into nine paddy groups (Wang et al. 2009b). Three new groups of T4-type phages have been identified from an upland black soil in Northeast China (Wang et al., 2011).

The result suggested that T4-type phage communities in soil and water are significantly different, which explains that the T4-type phage communities in terrestrial environments are determined both by biogeographic and ecological processes (Webb et al., 2002).