The role of viruses in saline Antarctic lakes

Thus the role of viruses is multifarious and there is a growing realisation that these tiny particles, which can reach abundances of 108 ml-1 in aquatic ecosystems, may play a major role in mediating community dynamics and geochemical processes. We propose investigating the role of viruses marine microbial communities, by using natural, simplified model ecosystems. They are dominated by a microbial plankton, there are no fish and few or no zooplankton.

The saline lakes are marine derived systems retaining elements of the marine microbial plankton, and are consequently analogues of the marine environment.In addition to more easily clarify the role of viruses in biogeochemical cycling we will incorporate a study of cryconite holes. The dataset is stored as an excel spreadsheet, and divided into 3 sheets - one for each lake studied: Ace Lake, Pendant Lake, Highway Lake.

A text document detailing the methods used in the study is also available for download. The fields in this dataset are: Location Date Sampling depth snowcover snow depth ice depth PAR temperature conductivity pH NO3 PO NH4 Total Oxygen Content Dissolved Oxygen Content Chlorophyll Virus Heterotrophic bacteria Phototrophic bacteria Pyramimonas Cryptophytes Chlamydomonas Type 2 HNAN Cryptophyte Type 1 Bacteria PPR Leucine BPR Thymidine BPR