Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Do Viruses Affect Fecundity And Survival Of The Copepod Acartia Tonsa Dana?, Lisa A. Drake, Fred C. Dobbs

OES Faculty Publications

Naturally occurring viruses are extremely abundant in aquatic systems, and they infect bacteria, cyanobacteria, prokaryotic and eukaryotic phytoplankton, heterotrophic nanoflagellates, fish and mammals. Viral infections of single-celled organisms have been studied intensively in the past decade, but little is known about the effects of viruses on aquatic metazoans, other than for some economically important species. Because zooplankton assemblages are often dominated in number and biomass by copepods, we used them as model organisms to study the effects of naturally occurring viruses on higher trophic levels. We attempted to induce viral infection in laboratory-reared cultures of the estuarine copepod Acartia tonsa …