Physiological responses of Oxyrrhis marina to a diet of virally infected Emiliania huxleyi

The coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi forms some of the largest phytoplankton blooms in the ocean. The rapid demise of these blooms has been linked to viral infections. E. huxleyi abundance, distribution, and nutritional status make them an important food source for the heterotrophic protists which...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inPeerJ preprints
Main Authors Goode, Andrew G, Fields, David M, Archer, Stephen D, Joaquín Martínez Martínez
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published San Diego PeerJ, Inc 13.04.2018
Subjects
Emiliania huxleyi
Fatty acids
Food sources
Food webs
Growth rate
Heterotrophs
Nutritional status
Oxyrrhis marina
Phytoplankton
Plankton
Prey
Viral infections
Zooplankton
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:The coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi forms some of the largest phytoplankton blooms in the ocean. The rapid demise of these blooms has been linked to viral infections. E. huxleyi abundance, distribution, and nutritional status make them an important food source for the heterotrophic protists which are classified as microzooplankton in marine food webs. In this study we investigated the fate of E. huxleyi (CCMP 374) infected with virus strain EhV-86 in a simple predator-prey interaction. The ingestion rates of Oxyrrhis marina were significantly lower (between 26.9 and 50.4%) when fed virus-infected E. huxleyi cells compared to non-infected cells. Despite the lower ingestion rates, O. marina showed significantly higher growth rates (between 30 and 91.3%) when fed infected E. huxleyi cells, suggesting higher nutritional value and/or greater assimilation of infected E. huxleyi cells. No significant differences were found in O. marina cell volumes or fatty acids profiles. These results show that virally infected E. huxleyi support higher growth rates of single celled heterotrophs and in addition to the “viral shunt” hypothesis, viral infections may also divert more carbon to mesozooplankton grazers.
ISSN:2167-9843
DOI:10.7287/peerj.preprints.26851v1