High viral infection rates in Antarctic and Arctic bacterioplankton

• Published in: Environmental Microbiology
• Main Authors: Säwström, Christin, Granéli, Wilhelm, Laybourn‐Parry, Johanna, Anesio, Alexandre M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2006
• Subjects: Antarctic; Arctic; Antarc*
• 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 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.