Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 1994 Sep;28(2):237-43.
doi: 10.1007/BF00166813.

The significance of viruses to mortality in aquatic microbial communities

C A Suttle  1
Affiliations

The significance of viruses to mortality in aquatic microbial communities

C A Suttle. Microb Ecol. 1994 Sep.

Abstract

A variety of approaches including enumeration of visibly infected microbes, removal of viral particles, decay of viral infectivity, and measurements of viral production rates have been used to infer the impact of viruses on microbial mortality. The results are surprisingly consistent and suggest that, on average, about 20% of marine heterotrophic bacteria are infected by viruses and 10-20% of the bacterial community is lysed daily by viruses. The effect of viruses on phytoplankton is less certain, but ca. 3% of Synechococcus biomass may be lysed daily. The fraction of primary productivity this represents depends upon the relative biomass and growth rate of Synechococcus. Virus enrichment experiments suggest that the productivity of eukaryotic phytoplankton would be ca. 2% higher in the absence of viruses. Overall, probably about 2-3% of primary productivity is lost to viral lysis. There is considerable variation about these estimates; however, they represent a starting point for incorporating viral-mediated processes into aquatic ecosystem models.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Appl Environ Microbiol. 1992 Nov;58(11):3721-9 - PubMed
    1. Microb Ecol. 1993 Mar;25(2):161-82 - PubMed
    1. Appl Environ Microbiol. 1976 Mar;31(3):415-22 - PubMed
    1. Appl Environ Microbiol. 1993 Oct;59(10):3393-9 - PubMed
    1. J Water Pollut Control Fed. 1975 Jan;47(1):93-103 - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources

-