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Unraveling the Unseen Players in the Ocean - A Field Guide to Water Chemistry and Marine Microbiology
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Single Cell Genomics Reveals Viruses Consumed by Marine Protists
Julia M Brown1, Jessica M Labonté2, Joseph Brown3
1Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, East Boothbay, ME, United States.
Frontiers in Microbiology
|October 19, 2020
Summary
Marine protists consume viruses, adding a new "viral link" to the microbial food web. This challenges the traditional "viral shunt" model and impacts ocean carbon flow.
Area of Science:
- Marine microbiology
- Viral ecology
- Protistan biology
Background:
- The
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate viral DNA presence in marine protists.
- Determine the role of protists in viral dynamics.
- Assess implications for the marine microbial food web.
Main Methods:
- Analyzed non-eukaryotic DNA from individual planktonic protist cells.
- Compared viral DNA association in protists from the Gulf of Maine and Mediterranean Sea.
- Examined viral sequence composition and distribution across protistan lineages.
Main Results:
- Viral DNA found in 51% of Gulf of Maine and 35% of Mediterranean protist cells.
- Picozoa and Choanozoa showed 100% viral DNA association with high viral sequence counts.
- Identical viral sequences across diverse protists suggest non-infective roles or widespread predation.
Conclusions:
- Protistan predation on viruses complements the viral shunt.
- A new
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