High viral infection rates in Antarctic and Arctic bacterioplankton
Summary The frequency of visibly phage‐infected bacterial cells (FVIB) and the average number of phages per cell [i.e. burst size (BS)] were determined in Antarctic and Arctic ultra‐oligotrophic freshwater environments. Water samples were collected from two Antarctic freshwater lakes and cryoconite...
| Published in: | Environmental Microbiology |
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Wiley
2006
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1462-2920.2006.01135.x https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1462-2920.2006.01135.x http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/j.1462-2920.2006.01135.x/fullpdf |
| Summary: | Summary The frequency of visibly phage‐infected bacterial cells (FVIB) and the average number of phages per cell [i.e. burst size (BS)] were determined in Antarctic and Arctic ultra‐oligotrophic freshwater environments. Water samples were collected from two Antarctic freshwater lakes and cryoconite holes from a glacier in the Arctic. Data from this bipolar study show the highest FVIB (average 26.1%, range 5.1% to 66.7%) and the lowest BS (average 4, range 2–15) ever reported in the literature. The bacterial density is low in these ultra‐oligotrophic freshwater environments but a large proportion of the bacteria are visibly infected. Our results suggest that a constant virioplankton population can be maintained in these extreme environments even though host density is low and often slow growing. |
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