| Summary: | Trabajo presentado en ASLO Aquatic Sciences Meeting (2011), celebrado en San Juan (Puerto Rico), del 13 al 17 de febrero de 2011 The Arctic region is experiencing the steepest warming rate on Earth, which is three times faster than the global mean. Here we examine changes of carbon fluxes from bacteria to larger predators by protists, and by viruses due to increased water temperature in the Arctic Ocean. Our aim is to resolve which is the effect of global warming affecting these microbial activity rates. During July 2009, we collected Arctic water to carry out a mesocosms experiment along 10 days and at 7 different temperatures from 1.5 to 10ºC. We have detected that all microbial abundances as well as bacterial production and fluxes of bacterial carbon due to grazers and viruses achieved maximum values around 4.5º- 6ºC experimental temperature, and maintained high values even at higher experimental temperatures. The biomass of phototrophs, has also shown maximum values at ca. 5ºC and a clear decrease at temperatures higher than 5ºC. The obtained results indicate that the increase of the water temperature is followed by a shift towards more heterotrophic community, which could have an impact on carbon storage in the Arctic region. Peer Reviewed
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