Coccolithovirus facilitation of carbon export in the North Atlantic

• Published in: Nature microbiology Vol. 3; no. 5; pp. 537 - 547
• Main Authors: Laber, Christien P., Hunter, Jonathan E., Carvalho, Filipa, Collins, James R., Hunter, Elias J., Schieler, Brittany M., Boss, Emmanuel, More, Kuldeep, Frada, Miguel, Thamatrakoln, Kimberlee, Brown, Christopher M., Haramaty, Liti, Ossolinski, Justin, Fredricks, Helen, Nissimov, Jozef I., Vandzura, Rebecca, Sheyn, Uri, Lehahn, Yoav, Chant, Robert J., Martins, Ana M., Coolen, Marco J. L., Vardi, Assaf, DiTullio, Giacomo R., Van Mooy, Benjamin A. S., Bidle, Kay D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 01-05-2018; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 13/31; 14/28; 38/77; 631/326/171/1878; 631/326/2565/855; 631/326/596/2557; 631/45/287; 704/158/47; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Carbon; Carbon cycle; Food webs; Infections; Infectious Diseases; Inorganic carbon; Letter; Life Sciences; Medical Microbiology; Microbiology; Parasitology; Phytoplankton; Primary production; Virology; Zooplankton
• ISSN: 2058-5276; 2058-5276
• DOI: 10.1038/s41564-018-0128-4

Marine phytoplankton account for approximately half of global primary productivity
1
, making their fate an important driver of the marine carbon cycle. Viruses are thought to recycle more than one-quarter of oceanic photosynthetically fixed organic carbon
2
, which can stimulate nutrient regeneration, primary production and upper ocean respiration
2
via lytic infection and the ‘virus shunt’. Ultimately, this limits the trophic transfer of carbon and energy to both higher food webs and the deep ocean
2
. Using imagery taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the Aqua satellite, along with a suite of diagnostic lipid- and gene-based molecular biomarkers, in situ optical sensors and sediment traps, we show that
Coccolithovirus
infections of mesoscale (~100 km)
Emiliania huxleyi
blooms in the North Atlantic are coupled with particle aggregation, high zooplankton grazing and greater downward vertical fluxes of both particulate organic and particulate inorganic carbon from the upper mixed layer. Our analyses captured blooms in different phases of infection (early, late and post) and revealed the highest export flux in ‘early-infected blooms’ with sinking particles being disproportionately enriched with infected cells and subsequently remineralized at depth in the mesopelagic. Our findings reveal viral infection as a previously unrecognized ecosystem process enhancing biological pump efficiency.
Using a combination of remote-sensing technologies, lipidomics and gene-based biomarkers, the authors demonstrate a coupling between viral infection of an
Emiliania huxleyi
bloom and the export of organic and inorganic carbon from the photic zone.