DNA viruses are constrained to ecological niches and share similar environmental adaptations with hosts

Viruses are ubiquitous albeit individually constrained by host-range. Less well understood are environmental limitations on virus proliferation. To investigate estuarine viral diversity, niche constraints, and traits of environmental adaptation, we analyse metagenomic and metatranscriptomic data from an estuarine salinity gradient, including water and sediment. We then expand our analysis to globally-distributed viral genomes. Viral distributions vary by estuary habitat, reflecting prokaryote community patterns, and highlighting that virus-host interactions are strongly influenced by environment. Viral lineages, up until approximately the rank of genus, are largely partitioned by ecological niche based on factors such as salinity and the aquatic-terrestrial divide. Across habitat boundaries, viruses feature osmoadaptive traits similar to their prokaryote hosts. These include slightly elevated ratios of acidic to basic amino acids and decreased protein isoelectric points at higher salinities, particularly in virus major tail and capsid proteins, which are not solely explained by reliance on host machinery. Further studies are needed to determine the primary driver of these modifications in viruses (e.g. environment or host) and whether these traits restrict virus distributions beyond host-range limitation. Overall, our findings indicate that successful proliferations of viruses into distinct biomes (e.g. freshwater, saline, terrestrial) are rare, with viruses constrained to specific ecological niches.