Co-evolutionary patterns shown in Ostreococcus-virus system from the Western Baltic Sea in freshly isolated hosts and viruses

• Marine viruses are a major driver of phytoplankton mortality and thereby influence biogeochemical cycling of carbon and other nutrients. In recent years, an understanding of the potential importance of phytoplankton-targeting viruses on ecosystem dynamics has emerged, but experimental investigations of host-virus interactions on a broad spatial and temporal scale are still missing. Here, we investigated in detail a phytoplankton host’s responses reacting to infections by species-specific viruses from i) distinct geographical regions and ii) different sampling seasons. Specifically, we used two species of picophytoplankton (1 µm) Ostreococcus tauri and O. mediterraneus and their viruses (size ca. 100 nm), which represent systems well-known in marine biology, but almost entirely ignored in evolutionary biology. The strains stem from different regions of the Southwestern Baltic Sea that vary in salinity and temperature. Using an experimental cross-infection set-up, we show that in this natural system evolutionary history, and thus the timing of when hosts and their associated viruses coexisted, was the main driver of infection patterns. In addition species and strain specificity underline the present understanding of rapid host-virus co-evolution.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Evolutionsbiologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Evolutionary Biology (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Mikrobiologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Microbiology (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Ekologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Ecology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Ostreococcus

virus

phytoplankton

evolutionary biology

Baltic Sea

cross-infection

Miljövetenskap

Environmental Science

Virology

Virologi

Akvatisk ekologi

Aquatic Ecology

Evolutionary Biology

Evolutionsbiologi

Mikrobiologi

Microbiology

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

ovr (subject category)