SGER: Giant Virus Regulation of Coccolithophorid Dynamics

平均每茶匙海水中含有1000万种病毒，它们是海洋中含量最丰富的生物颗粒。海洋环境代表着一个几乎无限的具有未知功能的未知病毒的储存库。也许令人惊讶的是，它们的作用不是杀死一切，而是充当基因转移的载体，推动进化过程，并在海洋生物地球化学循环中扮演“催化剂”的角色。这项研究的重点是一组巨型病毒(来自球虫病毒科)，感染球石虫，一种单细胞钙化微藻，是目前全球生物地球化学循环、气候模拟和海洋酸化研究的关键物种。这笔赠款的基本假设是，随着海洋变得更加酸性，这些巨大的藻类病毒对海洋球虫多样性和丰度的变化迅速做出反应。研究人员的假设是，巨藻病毒基本上将保持必要的平衡，以使浮游植物群落在酸化水平上升时有效发挥作用。这项研究是与阿根廷巴塔哥尼亚大陆架上的一艘研究邮轮协调进行的，巴塔哥尼亚大陆架是世界上最大、生产力最高、但基本上未被勘探的大陆架地区之一。这次巡航的目的是调查海洋酸化以及影响浮游植物水华动力学的其他关键生物地球化学参数。病毒活动无疑将在塑造这些生态系统方面发挥关键作用。利用稀释研究、分离研究、流式细胞术、定量和定性分子方法，包括元基因组学，研究人员将评估病毒与宿主的相互作用如何反应和适应海洋酸化。在邮轮上收集的平行数据将被证明是与分子生态学和最终的元基因组数据(只收集样本，而不是分析)相关联的极其宝贵的资源，并应提供对病毒在巴塔哥尼亚陆架地区的作用的定量见解。这项研究的更广泛影响将主要来自直接参与研究的科学家与学生/公众之间的互动。例如，这项提案中概述的研究将在一个非正式的“科学咖啡馆”计划中讨论，该计划旨在向普通公众传授最新的科学思想。此外，研究人员还开发了单独的程序，向K-12学生传授针对不同教育水平的病毒结构。该项目还支持POST文档。

With an average of 10-million viruses in a teaspoon of seawater, they are the most abundant biological particles in the ocean. The marine environment represents an almost infinite reservoir of unknown viruses with unknown functions. Perhaps surprisingly, their role is not to kill everything, but to act as vectors for gene transfer that drive evolutionary processes and to act as "catalysts" in marine biogeochemical cycling. This research focuses on a group of giant viruses (from the genus Coccolithoviridae) that infect the coccolithophorid Emiliania huxleyi, a unicellular calcifying microalgae and a key species for current studies on global biogeochemical cycles, climate modeling and ocean acidification. The underlying hypothesis of this grant is that these giant algal viruses rapidly respond to changes in marine coccolithophore diversity and abundance as the ocean becomes more acidic. The investigator's hypothesis is that giant algal viruses will essentially maintain the necessary equilibrium to allow the phytoplankton community to function effectively during elevated levels of acidification. The research is coordinated with a research cruise along the Patagonian Shelf off Argentina, one of the world's largest, most productive, yet largely unexplored shelf regions. The aim of the cruise is to investigate ocean acidification as well as other key biogeochemical parameters that influence phytoplankton bloom dynamics. Virus activity will undoubtedly play a key role in shaping these ecosystems. Using dilution studies, isolation studies, flow cytometry, quantitative and qualitative molecular approaches, including metagenomics, the investigator will assess how virus-host interactions can react and adapt to ocean acidification. Parallel data collected on the cruise will prove an incredibly valuable resource for correlation with the molecular ecological and eventual metagenomic data (for which samples will only be collected, not analyzed) and should provide quantitative insights into the role of viruses in the Patagonian Shelf region. Broader Impacts of this study will derive mainly from interactions between the scientists directly involved in the research and students/general public. For example, research outlined in this proposal will be discussed during an informal "Café Scientifique" program designed to teach the general public about the latest ideas in science. In addition, the investigator has developed individual programs for teaching K-12 students the structure of viruses that are targeted to the different education levels. A post doc is also supported by the project.