Virus numbers are staggering - they are by far the most abundant and diverse organisms on Earth. Of these, the vast majority are viruses that infect and kill bacteria (known as 'phages'), and of these, around a quarter are thought to infect Pelagibacterales. Yet, until 2013, the existence of viruses that infect Pelagibacterales was entirely unknown. Phage-induced cell death releases the contents of the host cell into the water column and this dissolved organic matter provides nutrients to surviving cells. Furthermore, bacteria and viruses co-evolve to produce resistance and counter-resistance mechanisms. In some cases, this co-evolution can lead to the emergence of new types of host, resistant to viruses and capable of thriving despite high viral abundance. Therefore, both nutrients and viral predation can influence the abundance and diversity of marine bacteria. This project is the first attempt to evaluate the impact of the viruses infecting Pelagibacterales on their diversity and abundance over seasonal timescales. The findings will enable us to build better models of future carbon biogeochemistry by accurately incorporating viral predation of the Pelagibacterales in global carbon cycling. Using short and long read high throughput sequencing we analyze the viral and cellular fractions of biomass collected monthly at the Western English Channel.