High Diversity of the Viral Community from an Antarctic Lake
Alberto López-Bueno,1
Javier Tamames,2,3,4
David Velázquez,5
Andrés Moya,2,3,4
Antonio Quesada,5
Antonio Alcamí1,6,*
Viruses are the most abundant biological entities and can control
microbial communities, but their identity in terrestrial and
freshwater Antarctic ecosystems is unknown. The genetic structure
of an Antarctic lake viral community revealed unexpected genetic
richness distributed across the highest number of viral families
that have been found to date in aquatic viral metagenomes. In
contrast to other known aquatic viromes, which are dominated
by bacteriophage sequences, this Antarctic virus assemblage
had a large proportion of sequences related to eukaryotic viruses,
including phycodnaviruses and single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) viruses
not previously identified in aquatic environments. We also observed
that the transition from an ice-covered lake in spring to an
open-water lake in summer led to a change from a ssDNA–
to a double-stranded DNA–virus-dominated assemblage, possibly
reflecting a seasonal shift in host organisms.
2 Instituto Cavanilles de Biodiversidad y Biología Evolutiva, Universitat de València, València, Spain.
3 Centro Superior de Investigación en Salud Pública, Consellería de Sanidad, Generalitat Valenciana, València, Spain.
4 Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red en Epidemiología y Salud Pública, Barcelona, Spain.
5 Departamento de Biología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
6 Department of Medicine, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 2QQ, UK.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: aalcami{at}cbm.uam.es
