Shawn Polson

Through infection and lysis of their coexisting bacterial hosts, viruses impact the biogeochemical cycles sustaining globally significant pelagic oceanic ecosystems. Currently, little is known of the ecological interactions between lytic viruses and their bacterial hosts underlying these biogeochemical impacts at ecosystem scales. This study focused on populations of lytic viruses carrying the B12-dependent Class II monomeric ribonucleotide reductase (RNR) gene, ribonucleotide-triphosphate reductase (Class II RTPR), documenting seasonal changes in pelagic virioplankton and bacterioplankton using amplicon sequences of Class II RTPR and the 16S rRNA gene, respectively. Amplicon sequence libraries were analyzed using compositional data analysis tools that account for the compositional nature of these data. Both virio- and bacterioplankton communities responded to environmental changes typically seen across seasonal cycles as well as shorter term upwelling–downwelling events. Defining Class II RTPR-carrying viral populations according to major phylogenetic clades proved a more robust means of exploring virioplankton ecology than operational taxonomic units defined by percent sequence homology. Virioplankton Class II RTPR populations showed positive associations with a broad phylogenetic diversity of bacterioplankton including dominant taxa within pelagic oceanic ecosystems such as Prochlorococcus and SAR11. Temporal changes in Class II RTPR virioplankton, occurring as both free viruses and within infected cells, indicated possible viral–host pairs undergoing sustained infection and lysis cycles throughout the seasonal study. Phylogenetic relationships inferred from Class II RTPR sequences mirrored ecological patterns in virio- and bacterioplankton populations demonstrating possible genome to phenome associations for an essential viral replication gene.