Virioplankton abundance in trophic gradients of an upwelling field.

ABSTRACT

This work correlates time series of biological and physical variables to the marine viruses across trophic gradients within Arraial do Cabo upwelling system, Southeast of Brazil. The objective is to investigate the major controlling factors of virioplankton dynamics among different water masses. It was used an in situ and ex situ flow cytometry for accessing the plankton community. Viruses were highly correlated to bacteria and phytoplankton, but although the lack of direct correlation with physicals, upwelling turned out to be the main contributing factor to the highest values of viral abundance and virusbacterial ratio. Our data suggest that the lowest temperature of upwelled South Atlantic Central Waters would help to maintain a high viral abundance and higher temperatures of Coastal and Tropical Waters might be another ecological niche allowing the co-existence.