Marine Microbiology: Biodiversity and Ecology

A special issue of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (ISSN 2077-1312). This special issue belongs to the section "Marine Biology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (5 October 2023) | Viewed by 4204

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 117997, Russia
Interests: marine viruses; prokaryotes; phototrophic and heterotrophic pico-, nano- and microplankton

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The microbial loop, which includes viruses, prokaryotes and heterotrophic nano- and microplankton, is the most important component of the planktonic community. The plankton microbial component is particularly important in all sea and freshwater ecosystems. Studies conducted in different regions have demonstrated that viruses are the most prevalent component of the plankton community and that, together with prokaryotes and protozoa, they play a significant role in the functioning of microbial communities in cold waters, as well as in temperate and tropical marine waters. Heterotrophic prokaryotes play a key role in the decomposition and transformation of organic matter, both natural and anthropogenic, and are an important component of planktonic food webs through which the majority of the carbon flux passes in benthic and pelagic systems. Protozoan grazing and viral lysis are the major cause of bacterioplankton mortality. When bacteria are consumed by protozoans (mainly by heterotrophic nanoflagellates), a significant amount of bacterial carbon enters higher levels of the food web. As a result of viral lysis, the carbon of lysed cells does not pass to higher trophic levels but enters the environment (“viral shunt”) and is actively involved in the metabolism of heterotrophic bacteria, i.e., captured in the microbial loop. In this Special Issue, "Marine Microbiology: Biodiversity and Ecology", we are looking for papers on the structure and function of heterotrophic microorganisms of aquatic microbiota on the topics above.

Dr. Andrey F. Sazhin
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • viruses and viral infection
  • prokaryotes
  • heterotrophic nanoflagellates and microplankton
  • marine and freshwater ecosystems
  • biodiversity

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 3706 KiB  
Article
Variation in Structure and Functional Diversity of Surface Bacterioplankton Communities in the Eastern East China Sea
by Zuochun Wang, Pengfei Xie, Jun Dai, Lei Zhang, Qiao Yang, Xiaoling Zhang and Xi Yang
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2024, 12(1), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse12010069 - 27 Dec 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 905
Abstract
Bacterioplankton communities are critical components of varied ecosystems in the oceans. Their occurrences represent a variety of connections between environmental and ecological elements. However, our current knowledge about the shaping factors of surface bacterioplankton communities in the eastern East China Sea (ECS) is [...] Read more.
Bacterioplankton communities are critical components of varied ecosystems in the oceans. Their occurrences represent a variety of connections between environmental and ecological elements. However, our current knowledge about the shaping factors of surface bacterioplankton communities in the eastern East China Sea (ECS) is still limited. In this study, we reveal the spatial patterns of the taxonomic and functional profiles of the surface bacterioplankton communitiesies in the nearshore and offshore areas in the eastern ECS, based on 16S rRNA gene pyrosequencing and functional annotation analysis. The obtained results show that the surface bacterioplankton communities in the nearshore areas are mainly dominated by the firmicutes (85.9%), actinobacteria (8.1%), and proteobacteria (5.4%), which are mainly involved in organic compound metabolism. Meanwhile, different bacteria predominate the composition of the offshore group, namely proteobacteria (71.1%) and bacteroidetes (22.0%) responsible for nitrogen and sulfur metabolism. Furthermore, their distribution pattern is shown to be spatially determined, along with a modest finding of functional diversity when comparing the bacterial species. The primary two shaping factors of bacterioplankton diversity are found to be the offshore distance and temperature. Overall, these findings add to those previously published on bacterial species and offer up functional information on the surface bacterioplankton communities in the eastern ECS. To extend our research, we propose that, in the future, it may be beneficial to monitor the dynamics of the ecosystem in this sea area. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Marine Microbiology: Biodiversity and Ecology)
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10 pages, 1441 KiB  
Article
Differences in Bacterial Growth and Mortality between Seagrass Meadows and Adjacent Unvegetated Areas
by Patrichka Wei-Yi Chen, Madeline Olivia, Wen-Chen Chou, Ruei-Feng Shiu, Vladimir Mukhanov and An-Yi Tsai
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2023, 11(10), 1979; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse11101979 - 13 Oct 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1218
Abstract
A seagrass meadow is one of the most important ecosystems around the world, both economically and ecologically. An important feature of this ecosystem is the presence of large coastal seagrass beds, which dominate the primary production and contribute to the secondary productivity of [...] Read more.
A seagrass meadow is one of the most important ecosystems around the world, both economically and ecologically. An important feature of this ecosystem is the presence of large coastal seagrass beds, which dominate the primary production and contribute to the secondary productivity of the ecosystem. The microbial loop (consuming bacterial biomass by grazers and using seagrass-derived detritus by bacteria) may be an important mechanism for transferring seagrass-derived organic matter to aquatic food chains. The goal of this study is to gain a better understanding of how bacterial growth and mortality (grazing and viral lysis rates) differ in unvegetated meadow habitats and seagrass habitats. According to this study, DOC levels were higher in seagrass habitats (1685 g L−1) than in unvegetated water surroundings. The instantaneous growth rate of bacteria in seagrass habitats was 2.05 d−1, higher than that of unvegetated water. In a seagrass environment during the summer, we have found that viral lysis and grazing both result in similar mortality rates of bacteria during the summer season. It has been found, however, that bacterial production is controlled by the availability of resources (bottom-up control) in adjacent unvegetated waters, and is thus cycled internally within the bacteria–virus–DOC loop within those waters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Marine Microbiology: Biodiversity and Ecology)
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