High viral infection rates in Antarctic and Arctic bacterioplankton

The frequency of visibly phage-infected bacterialcells (FVIB) and the average number of phagesper cell [i.e. burst size (BS)] were determined inAntarctic and Arctic ultra-oligotrophic freshwaterenvironments. Water samples were collected fromtwo Antarctic freshwater lakes and cryoconite holesfrom a g...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental Microbiology
Main Authors: Sawstrom, C, Graneli, W, Laybourn-Parry, J, Anesio, AM
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2007
Subjects:
Biological Sciences
Microbiology
Microbial Ecology
Antarctic
Arctic
Antarc*
Online Access:http://interscience.wiley.com
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1462-2920.2006.01135.x
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17227429
http://ecite.utas.edu.au/52793
Description
Summary:The frequency of visibly phage-infected bacterialcells (FVIB) and the average number of phagesper cell [i.e. burst size (BS)] were determined inAntarctic and Arctic ultra-oligotrophic freshwaterenvironments. Water samples were collected fromtwo Antarctic freshwater lakes and cryoconite holesfrom a glacier in the Arctic. Data from this bipolarstudy show the highest FVIB (average 26.1%, range5.1% to 66.7%) and the lowest BS (average 4, range215) ever reported in the literature. The bacterialdensity is low in these ultra-oligotrophic freshwaterenvironments but a large proportion of the bacteriaare visibly infected. Our results suggest that a constantvirioplankton population can be maintained inthese extreme environments even though hostdensity is low and often slow growing.

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