Soils contain a vast diversity of viruses capable of infecting microbial communities (1). They can affect rates of biogeochemical processes by killing active cells via lysis, or augmenting function through the transfer of auxiliary metabolic genes. In marine environments, viruses play a major role in controlling population sizes and fluxes of carbon and nitrogen from organic to dissolved inorganic pools (2). In comparison, while soil viruses have recently received considerable research interest, we currently have little  understanding of their impact on soil biogeochemical cycles (3). While DNA viruses have recently been shown to be highly dynamic in soil ecosystems, the diversity, activity and ecological significance of RNA viruses in soils remains poorly understood. This knowledge gap is compounded by potential biases used in methods to profile RNA virus communities, and that most studies have focused on RNA viruses of eukaryotes. However, emerging evidence suggests RNA viruses may also play a critical role in infecting prokaryotes, influencing their growth, physiology and ecological function. Our research group has recently developed a range of molecular tools to characterize the viruses of hosts involved in carbon and nitrogen biogeochemical cycles in soil (4,5,6)