Viral abundance and community structure among four contrasting areas in the Southern Ocean and their implication to marine aerosol formation

4th Interlab Meeting, 22-23 May 2017, Banyuls-sur-Mer, France
Marine viruses, together with other planktonic microorganisms, play an important role on the marine ecosystem functioning, and their activity can contribute on the marine aerosol composition. During the interdisciplinary PEGASO expedition, we visit four contrasting areas of the Southern Ocean (Antarctic and sub-antarctic), with high (South Giorgia Island) to low degree (Orkney Islands) of microplanktonic biomass and activity and derived secondary compounds concentration. In this study we aimed to (I) describe different viral community abundance and structures (distribution and diversity) among four contrasted areas; (II) relate them with their main hosts (bacteria and phytoplankton) as well as with physicochemical variables and (III) uncover their relation with metabolic secondary compounds generated by marine microbiological activity, which in turn, can be related with the marine aerosol composition