The last 10–15 years have seen major changes in our views of marine planktonic food webs, primarily from the realization that prokaryotic microorganisms and small eukaryotes are responsible for a significant fraction, often 50% or more, of the primary production and heterotrophic consumption of organic matter in these systems (Williams, 1981: Azam et al., 1983: Stockner and Antia, 1986: Fuhrman, 1992). However, it has only been in the past few years that marine scientists have investigated the roles of viruses in ecological processes. Although this research area is only in its infancy, early results suggest that viruses may be important agents in the mortality of marine microorganisms and in controlling their genetic compositions. This paper will summarize the experiments and measurements that have led to this suggestion as well as the conceptual framework within which they are interpreted.

Fuhrman, J.A., and C.A. Suttle. 1993. Viruses in marine planktonic systems. Oceanography 6(2):51–63, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.1993.14.

This is an open access article made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution, and reproduction in any medium or format as long as users cite the materials appropriately, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate the changes that were made to the original content. Images, animations, videos, or other third-party material used in articles are included in the Creative Commons license unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If the material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission directly from the license holder to reproduce the material.