The diversity of cyanomyovirus populations along a North–South Atlantic Ocean transect

Viruses that infect the marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus have the potential to impact the growth, productivity, diversity and abundance of their hosts. In this study, changes in the microdiversity of cyanomyoviruses were investigated in 10 environmental samples taken along a North–South Atlantic Ocean transect using a myoviral-specific PCR-sequencing approach. Phylogenetic analyses of 630 viral g20 clones from this study, with 786 published g20 sequences, revealed that myoviral populations in the Atlantic Ocean had higher diversity than previously reported, with several novel putative g20 clades. Some of these clades were detected throughout the Atlantic Ocean. Multivariate statistical analyses did not reveal any significant correlations between myoviral diversity and environmental parameters, although myoviral diversity appeared to be lowest in samples collected from the north and south of the transect where Prochlorococcus diversity was also lowest. The results were correlated to the abundance and diversity of the co-occurring Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus populations, but revealed no significant correlations to either of the two potential host genera. This study provides evidence that cyanophages have extremely high and variable diversity and are distributed over large areas of the Atlantic Ocean.