[Comment] Addressing methodological bias in phageome research to clarify bacteriophage diversity

Bacteriophages are the most abundant biological entities on Earth; however, their ecological and clinical relevance remains incompletely understood. The Article by Rachel M Wheatley and colleagues in The Lancet Microbe makes a crucial contribution to this field by evaluating whether changes in virome α or β diversity are associated with dysbiosis across multiple publicly available datasets.1 Their work advances the integration of viral ecology into studies of microbiome health and disease, offering valuable insights into how phageome diversity might serve as an indicator of microbial imbalance.