A cellular poison-based method (potassium cyanide) revealed that the addition of native viruses (regardless of the water type) consistently stimulated viral production. Conversely, in all incubations conducted with allochtonous (non-native) viruses, their overall production was not promoted, which suggests a lytic failure. Prokaryotic Selleck Verteporfin heterotrophic production increased in fresh and marine
water supplemented with native viruses, but not in the hypersaline water. These results point to the role of the viral shunt in low-salinity environments, where the release of bioavailable lysis products might be of high nutritional value for the noninfected prokaryotes. In contrast, in hypersaline water where glycerol is a major carbon and energy source for the heterotrophic community, dissolved organic matter (DOM) of lytic origin may represent a less important find more DOM source for prokaryotes.
Finally, our results suggest that cosmopolitan phages capable of moving between biomes are probably rare in aquatic habitats, supporting the common idea that most wild phages are relatively limited in their host range. Planktonic viruses represent biological entities of major importance in aquatic environments with regard to their natural abundance and their multiple biogeochemical and ecological roles (Fuhrman, 1999; Suttle, 2005). Most aquatic viruses are phages and are a major determinant of prokaryote abundance, activity and diversity through their lytic and lysogenic modes of infection (Weinbauer & Rassoulzadegan, 2004; Winter et al., 2010). The relationship between virus and prokaryotes, as studied in virus–host systems, Palbociclib ic50 has long been considered to be highly specific, with viruses often being seen to be unable to pass their host genus barrier and thus exhibiting a very limited host range (Ackermann & Dubow, 1987). However, during the last two decades, a handful of studies have questioned this paradigm for natural planktonic communities. Chiura (1997) first showed that some marine
viruses could infect Escherichia coli. More recently, Sano et al. (2004), Auguet et al. (2008) and Bonilla-Findji et al. (2008) have all reported that lacustrine and terrestrial viruses were capable of replicating when they were incubated with marine microorganisms. There is thus an emerging consensus that a fraction of planktonic viruses might be relatively polyvalent/cosmopolitan and capable of moving between biomes. This scenario is also supported by the recent finding that most aquatic viral genomes are rather widespread, and thus specific viral species may remain infectious in different aquatic environments and on a wide variety of bacterial hosts (Hambly & Suttle, 2005).