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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, September 2003, p. 5281-5289, Vol. 69, No. 9
0099-2240/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.69.9.5281-5289.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Does Virus-Induced Lysis Contribute Significantly to Bacterial Mortality in the Oxygenated Sediment Layer of Shallow Oxbow Lakes?

Ulrike R. Fischer, Claudia Wieltschnig, Alexander K. T. Kirschner, and Branko Velimirov*

Institute of Medical Biology, Research Group General Microbiology, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria

Received 20 February 2003/ Accepted 2 June 2003

Despite the recognition that viruses are ubiquitous components of aquatic ecosystems, the number of studies on viral abundance and the ecological role of viruses in sediments is scarce. In this investigation, the interactions between viruses and bacteria were studied in the oxygenated silty sediment layer of a mesotrophic oxbow lake. A long-term study (13 months) and a diel study revealed that viruses are a numerically important and dynamic component of the microbial community. The abundance and decay rates ranged from 4.3 x 109 to 7.2 x 109 particles ml of wet sediment-1 and from undetectable to 22.2 x 107 particles ml-1 h-1, respectively, and on average the values were 2 orders of magnitude higher than the values for the overlying water. In contrast to our expectations, viruses did not contribute significantly to the bacterial mortality in the sediment, since on average only 6% (range, 0 to 25%) of the bacterial secondary production was controlled by viruses. The low impact of viruses on the bacterial community may be associated with the quantitatively low viral burden that benthic bacteria have to cope with compared to the viral burden with which bacterial assemblages in the water column are confronted. The virus-to-bacterium ratio of the sediment varied between 0.9 and 3.2, compared to a range of 5.0 to 12.4 obtained for the water column. We speculate that despite high numbers of potential hosts, the possibility of encountering a host cell is limited by the physical conditions in the sediment, which is therefore not a favorable environment for viral proliferation. Our data suggest that viruses do not play an important role in the processing and transfer of bacterial carbon in the oxygenated sediment layer of the environment investigated.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Institute of Medical Biology, Research Group General Microbiology, University of Vienna, Waehringer Strasse 10, 1090 Vienna, Austria. Phone: 43-1-4277-60630. Fax: 43-1-4277-9606. E-mail: branko.velimirov{at}univie.ac.at.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, September 2003, p. 5281-5289, Vol. 69, No. 9
0099-2240/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/AEM.69.9.5281-5289.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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