Viral - Bacterial Interactions in the Marine Environment: Significance of Lysogeny

这个研究项目的总体目标是了解溶生作用在海洋环境中的重要性。为此，该提案解决了三个问题：溶原性在海洋环境中有多普遍？什么环境因素控制或影响溶原性决定？为什么溶原性与非溶原性相比具有竞争性（或者确实具有竞争性）？这些研究将以沿着营养梯度收集的种群和分离物进行，从河口到墨西哥湾东南部和南大西洋湾的低营养地表水，从地表水到深层缺氧环境。这项研究将解决已被证明影响自然种群和溶原分离物的“溶原决定”的环境因素（营养状况、压力、温度、诱变辐射和外源药物）。最后，本研究将检验细菌中存在的噬菌体是否会产生竞争优势，这是由噬菌体编码基因的生长速度和表达决定的。总的来说，这项研究将提供对许多这些过程的深入了解，并扩大对病毒与其他水柱微生物群落相互作用的了解。＊＊＊

9502775 Paul The overall objective of this research project is to understand the significance of lysogeny in the marine environment. Toward that end, the proposal addresses three questions: How prevalent is lysogeny in the marine environment? What environmental factors control or influence the lysogenic decision? and Why does lysogeny impart a competitive (or does it impart) over nonlysogens? These studies will be performed with populations and isolates collected along a trophic gradient from estuarine to oligotrophic surface waters of the southeastern Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic Bight and from surface waters to deep aphotic environments. The research will address environmental factors that have been shown to influence the "lysogenic decision" (nutrient status, pressure, temperature, mutagenic radiation and xenobiotics) on natural populations and lysogenic isolates. Finally the research will examine if the presence of a prophage in a bacterium results in a competitive advantage as determined by growth rates and expression of prophage encoded genes. Overall this study will provide insight into many of these processes and expand the knowledge of the interactions of viruses with the rest of the water column microbial community. ***