title: Distributions and relationships of virio- and picoplankton in the epi-, meso- and bathypelagic zones of the Western Pacific Ocean.
abstract: Virio- and picoplankton mediate important biogeochemical processes and the environmental factors that regulate their dynamics, and the virus-host interactions are incompletely known, especially in the deep sea. Here we report on their distributions and relationships with environmental factors at 21 stations covering a latitudinal range (2-23° N) in the Western Pacific Ocean. This region is characterized by a complex western boundary current system. Synechococcus, autotrophic picoeukaryotes, heterotrophic prokaryotes and virus-like particles (VLPs) were high (<2.4 × 102-6.3 × 104, <34-2.8 × 103, 3.9 × 104-1.3 × 106cells mL-1and 5.1 × 105-2.7 × 107mL-1, respectively), and Prochlorococcus were low (<2.3 × 102-1.0 × 105cells mL-1) in the Luzon Strait and the four most southerly stations, where upwelling occurs. Covariations in the abundances of VLPs with heterotrophic and autotrophic picoplankton, and their correlation (i.e. r2= 0.63 and 0.52, respectively) suggested a strong host dependence in the epi- and mesopelagic zones. In the bathypelagic zone, only abiotic factors significantly influenced VLPs abundance variation (r2= 0.12). This study shows that the dynamics of virio- and picoplankton in this Western Pacific are controlled by suite of complex and depth-dependent relationship among physical and biological factors that in turn link the physical hydrography of the western boundary current system with microbial-mediated biogeochemical processes.
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Marine Biology and Carbon Sequestration, Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Energy Genetics, Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266101, China.|Institute of Marine Microbes and Ecospheres, State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361101, China.
authors.forename: Yantao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Marine Biology and Carbon Sequestration, Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Energy Genetics, Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266101, China zhangyy@qibebt.ac.cn jiao@xmu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yongyu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Marine Microbes and Ecospheres, State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361101, China.
authors.forename: Yao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Marine Microbes and Ecospheres, State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361101, China.
authors.forename: Tingwei
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Department of Ocean Sciences, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL A1C 5S7, Canada.
authors.forename: Richard B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Rivkin
authors.affiliation: Institute of Marine Microbes and Ecospheres, State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361101, China zhangyy@qibebt.ac.cn jiao@xmu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Nianzhi
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Jiao
mesh_terms: D052818:Autotrophic Processes; D057486:Carbon Cycle; D004777:Environment; D052836:Heterotrophic Processes; D010140:Pacific Ocean; D010679:Philippines; D058974:Phylogeography; D048929:Prochlorococcus; D012623:Seawater / Q000382:microbiology / Q000821:virology*; D046940:Synechococcus
keywords: Western Pacific Ocean; bathypelagic; flow cytometry; picoplankton; upwelling; virioplankton