TITLE:     Palmer LTER: Aquatic virus abundances near the Antarctic Peninsula
AUTHORS:   DF Bird, R Maranger, DM Karl
Palmer LTER Contribution No. 24

The recent discovery of high abundances of viruses in non-
polluted sea water at temperate latitudes (Bergh et al.
1989; Proctor and Fuhrman 1990) suggests that virus attack
is important to the dynamics of the microbial community.
Viruslike particles have been reported at abundances up to 60
times the concentration of the bacteria (Proctor and Fuhrman
1992).  In addition, the occurrence of rapid increases in viral
abundance during the decline of planktonic bacterial and algal
blooms (Bratbak et al. 1990) indicates that virus infection
might be an important source of bacterial and algal mortality
in the sea.