Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

SS41 Diversity in the Plankton: Patterns & Mechanisms at Different Scales (Spatial and Temporal Connections)

Date: Thursday, February 15, 2001, Time: 3:45:00 PM

Location: Dona Ana

Weinbauer, M, G, NIOZ, Den Burg, Netherlands, wein@nioz.nl

Höfle, M, G, GBF, Braunschweig, Germany, mho@gbf.de

TESTING THE HYPOTHESIS THAT VIRAL LYSIS INFLUENCES BACTERIAL DIVERSITY

Markus G. Weinbauer, Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Texel, The Netherlands, wein@nioz.nl Manfred G. Höfle, National Research Centre for Biotechnology, Braunschweig, Germany, mho@gbf.de The hypothesis has been put forward that viral lysis of bacteria sustains bacterial diversity by ‘killing the winner’ and thus keeping in check competitive dominants. Concentrates of the natural bacterioplankton community were inoculated into the virus-rich (<0.2-µm pore-size filtered) and virus-free (<100kDa filtered) fraction of lake or seawater. Strain-specific monoclonal antibodies (MAb), genus- to clone-specific oligonucleotide probes and fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) and community structure analysis (single strand conformation polymorphism [SSCP] of the 16S rRNA gene and sequencing) were used to tackle the effect of viral lysis on bacterial diversity. Bacterial growth and abundance of single populations as determined by MAb and FISH was typically lower in virus-rich than in virus-free seawater. Using SSCP, typically more bands could be observed by using SSCP in incubations containing viruses than in virus-free incubations. The data support the hypothesis that viral lysis can control the abundance of populations and by that influence bacterial diversity and production.

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Aquatic Sciences Meeting, Albuquerque 2001

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