'Is microbial life, including viruses, changing too?' Mon, Apr 19 2021 09:39:17 AM New Delhi, Apr 19 (IANS): With alarms sounded about the declining diversity of plants and animals, a related concern with equally profound implications is posed: Is the variety of microbial life, including viruses, changing too -- and if so, in which direction and how fast? In a paper published on Monday, David S. Thaler of the University of Basel, Switzerland, and Guest Investigator at The Rockefeller University's Programme for the Human Environment (PHE), notes "clearly downwards" trajectory of plant and animal diversity, constituting "a key issue of the Anthropocene". Whether change is underway also in the world of microbes -- the tiniest cogs in planetary functioning -- is "a complete unknown. We have no idea whether global microbial diversity is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same," says Thaler.