Marine environments bacterial community

The characterisation of LAS degradation in the marine environment requires laboratory experiments, although due to the special characteristics of this compartment (e.g. its high salinity and its normally oligotrophic status) and the numerous variables that affect it, divergent results may be obtained. Marine-specific bacterial communities cannot be cultivated as a whole in standard media due to the difficulty of reproducing original ecosystem conditions where they have been... 

Rooney-Varga, J., Giewat, M., Savin, M., Sood, S., LeGresley, M., and Martin, J. (2005). Links between phytoplankton and bacterial community dynamics in a coastal marine environment. Microb. Ecol. 49, 163-175. 

Polz, M. F., Harbison, C., and Cavanaugh, C. M. (1999). Diversity and heterogeneity of epibiotic bacterial communities on the marine nematode Eubostrichus dianae. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 65, 4271-4275. 

The salinity of water bodies (Box 3.1) has an effect on the composition of primary producer communities. Fresh water and seawater in typical open marine environments contain the greatest numbers (diversity) of species. However, relatively few organisms can tolerate large fluctuations in salinity (e.g. where fresh water meets seawater in estuaries) and hypersaline conditions. In hypersaline conditions (Box 3.1) phytoplanktonic diversity is much reduced but the species adapted to these environments can produce large amounts of organic material. In addition, herbivore abundance may be low, so much of the net primary production may be available for incorporation into sediments. Cyano-bacterial mat communities tend to be successful in the shallow areas of such environments, and productivity can reach 8-12gCor m-2 day-1 (Schidlowski 1988). °rB... 

Rontani J.-F., Bonin P., Volkman J.K. (1999) Biodegradation of free phytol by bacterial communities isolated from marine sediments under aerobic and denitrifying conditions. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 65, 5484—92. 

The importance of viruses in the marine environment has only recently been recognized. Viruses are involved in structuring phytoplankton communities and represent important effectors of bacterial mortality (Proctor Fuhrman 1990 Suttle et al. 1991). Viruses are also associated with diseases in marine vertebrates and invertebrates (Austin 1988 and references therein). These recent discoveries indicate that viruses represent a potentially serious threat to the health of marine macro- and microorganisms and provide a clear ecological rationale for the maintenance of antiviral chemical defenses. The isolation of antiviral metabolites from marine invertebrates (Rinehart et al. 1981) and marine bacteria (Myouga et al. 1995) provides preliminary evidence that such defenses are maintained, however, additional studies are warranted. 

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