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

Andrew G Goode; David M Fields; Stephen D Archer; Joaquín Martínez Martínez

doi:10.7717/peerj.6722

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

PeerJ. 2019 Apr 19:7:e6722. doi: 10.7717/peerj.6722. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Andrew G Goode^{1

2}, David M Fields¹, Stephen D Archer¹, Joaquín Martínez Martínez¹

Affiliations

¹ Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, East Boothbay, ME, United States of America.
² School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine, Orono, ME, United States of America.

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Carbon; Coccolithophore; Dinoflagellate; Emiliania huxleyi; Food web; Grazing; Growth; Oxyrrhis marina; Phytoplankton; Virus; Zooplankton.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by funds from the National Science Foundation through Grant EAR 1460861–REU Site: Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences–Undergraduate Research Experience in the Gulf of Maine and the World Ocean, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Grant GBMF3397, and by the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and the University of Maine internal funding. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.