Sharoni Shlomit, Trainic Miri, Schatz Daniella, Lehahn Yoav, Flores Michel J, Bidle Kay D, Ben-Dor Shifra, Rudich Yinon, Koren Ilan, Vardi Assaf
Departments of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Plant and Environmental Sciences, and.
Departments of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 May 26;112(21):6643-7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1423667112. Epub 2015 May 11.
Marine viruses constitute a major ecological and evolutionary driving force in the marine ecosystems. However, their dispersal mechanisms remain underexplored. Here we follow the dynamics of Emiliania huxleyi viruses (EhV) that infect the ubiquitous, bloom-forming phytoplankton E. huxleyi and show that EhV are emitted to the atmosphere as primary marine aerosols. Using a laboratory-based setup, we showed that the dynamic of EhV aerial emission is strongly coupled to the host-virus dynamic in the culture media. In addition, we recovered EhV DNA from atmospheric samples collected over an E. huxleyi bloom in the North Atlantic, providing evidence for aerosolization of marine viruses in their natural environment. Decay rate analysis in the laboratory revealed that aerosolized viruses can remain infective under meteorological conditions prevailing during E. huxleyi blooms in the ocean, allowing potential dispersal and infectivity over hundreds of kilometers. Based on the combined laboratory and in situ findings, we propose that atmospheric transport of EhV is an effective transmission mechanism for spreading viral infection over large areas in the ocean. This transmission mechanism may also have an important ecological impact on the large-scale host-virus "arms race" during bloom succession and consequently the turnover of carbon in the ocean.
海洋病毒是海洋生态系统中的主要生态和进化驱动力。然而，它们的传播机制仍未得到充分探索。在此，我们追踪了感染无处不在的、形成水华的浮游植物赫氏颗石藻（Emiliania huxleyi）的赫氏颗石藻病毒（EhV）的动态，结果表明EhV作为初级海洋气溶胶排放到大气中。通过基于实验室的设置，我们表明EhV的空中排放动态与培养基中的宿主 - 病毒动态紧密相关。此外，我们从北大西洋一次赫氏颗石藻水华期间收集的大气样本中回收了EhV DNA，为海洋病毒在其自然环境中的气溶胶化提供了证据。实验室中的衰变率分析表明，在海洋中赫氏颗石藻水华期间盛行的气象条件下，气溶胶化的病毒可以保持感染性，从而有可能在数百公里的范围内传播和感染。基于实验室和现场的综合研究结果，我们提出EhV的大气传输是在海洋大面积区域传播病毒感染的一种有效传播机制。这种传播机制也可能对水华演替期间大规模的宿主 - 病毒“军备竞赛”以及海洋中的碳周转产生重要的生态影响。
