Seasonal time bombs: dominant temperate viruses affect Southern Ocean microbial dynamics.

ABSTRACT: Rapid warming in the highly productive western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) region of the Southern Ocean has affected multiple trophic levels, yet viral influences on microbial processes and ecosystem function remain understudied in the Southern Ocean. Here we use cultivation-independent quantitative ecological and metagenomic assays, combined with new comparative bioinformatic techniques, to investigate double-stranded DNA viruses during the WAP spring-summer transition. This study demonstrates that (i) temperate viruses dominate this region, switching from lysogeny to lytic replication as bacterial production increases, and (ii) Southern Ocean viral assemblages are genetically distinct from lower-latitude assemblages, primarily driven by this temperate viral dominance. This new information

SUBMITTER: Brum JR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4737935 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature