High viral infection rates in Antarctic and Arctic bacterioplankton

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 fr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental Microbiology
Main Authors: Säwström, Christin, Granéli, Wilhelm, Laybourn-Parry, Johanna, Anesio, Alexandre Magno
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley-Blackwell 2007
Subjects:
Microbiology
bacteria
antarctic
virus
arctic
lake
Arctic
Antarctic
Arctic Lake
Antarc*
Online Access:https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/698112
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1462-2920.2006.01135.x
Description
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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