The oceans are crawling with viruses. An international team of researchers surveyed the world’s oceans from pole to pole, sampling the waters for the microorganisms and they found nearly 200,000 of them.

Although we mostly think of viruses in terms of being sick, in the oceans, viruses and other marine microbes have an outsized impact on marine ecosystems. Their role is so large in fact that the researchers say the microorganisms can help predict how the oceans will respond to climate cha