Abstract
Viral lysis of phytoplankton constrains marine primary production, food web dynamics and biogeochemical cycles in the ocean. Yet, little is known about the biogeographical distribution of viral lysis rates across the global ocean. To address this, we investigated phytoplankton group-specific viral lysis rates along a latitudinal gradient within the North Atlantic Ocean. The data show large-scale distribution patterns of different virus groups across the North Atlantic that are associated with the biogeographical distributions of their potential microbial hosts. Average virus-mediated lysis rates of the picocyanobacteria Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus were lower than those of the picoeukaryotic and nanoeukaryotic phytoplankton (that is, 0.14 per day compared with 0.19 and 0.23 per day, respectively). Total phytoplankton mortality (virus plus grazer-mediated) was comparable to the gross growth rate, demonstrating high turnover rates of phytoplankton populations. Virus-induced mortality was an important loss process at low and mid latitudes, whereas phytoplankton mortality was dominated by microzooplankton grazing at higher latitudes (>56°N). This shift from a viral-lysis-dominated to a grazing-dominated phytoplankton community was associated with a decrease in temperature and salinity, and the decrease in viral lysis rates was also associated with increased vertical mixing at higher latitudes. Ocean-climate models predict that surface warming will lead to an expansion of the stratified and oligotrophic regions of the world’s oceans. Our findings suggest that these future shifts in the regional climate of the ocean surface layer are likely to increase the contribution of viral lysis to phytoplankton mortality in the higher-latitude waters of the North Atlantic, which may potentially reduce transfer of matter and energy up the food chain and thus affect the capacity of the northern North Atlantic to act as a long-term sink for CO2.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the captains and crews of the R/V Pelagia for their great help with sampling during the cruises. Furthermore, we thank Jan Finke, Douwe Maat, Richard Doggen and Anna Noordeloos for their on-board assistance, Lisa Hahn-Woernle for providing the physical data, Klaas Timmermans for providing Fv/Fm measurements and Harry Witte for his useful discussions regarding statistical analysis. This research was part of the STRATIPHYT project (ZKO-grant 839.08.420 for CPDB), supported by the Earth and Life Sciences Foundation (ALW), which is subsidized by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). We further acknowledge the OPTIMON project (ZKO) for JH and KDAM, the Turner-Kirk Charitable Trust of the Isaac Newton Institute for JH and NSF grants OCE-1061352 and OCE- 1030518 for SWW.
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Mojica, K., Huisman, J., Wilhelm, S. et al. Latitudinal variation in virus-induced mortality of phytoplankton across the North Atlantic Ocean. ISME J 10, 500–513 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2015.130
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2015.130
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