Figure 1.

Number of bacterial, phage and marine phage genomes submitted per year to the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC). Dates were extracted for all sequences within the EBI phage database (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/genomes/phage.html). Data are only shown from 1982 onwards with the inception of publically available databases. Dates are representative of when the sequence was submitted to INSDC rather than when any subsequent papers were published. Prophages are not included unless they have been specifically sequenced independently of their host bacterium. Phages were classified as marine if they were isolated from a marine environment.