The effect of protistan bacterivory in
bacterioplankton community structure

Marcelino Suzuki, Ph.D.
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

Wednesday, January 14, 1998
3:30 p.m.—MBARI Pacific Forum

Marine bacterioplankton are major components of marine biogeochemical cycles. Bacterioplankton participate in the transfer of carbon in pelagic food webs and play important roles on the cycles of major elements. Until recently, bacterioplankton have been regarded as a "black box" whose components were unknown. This was mainly due to methodological difficulties on the cultivation of marine bacterioplankton and the identification of in situ bacterioplankton diversity. The application of molecular biology techniques to marine microbial ecology revolutionized our views of marine microbial diversity and allowed the discovery of several lineages of bacteria previously unknown to exist in marine pelagic systems. Currently, the qualitative diversity of marine bacterioplankton is relatively well known, so the major challenge facing molecular microbial ecologists is the use of molecular biology techniques to the quantification and characterization of the diversity and activity of uncultivated bacteria as well as its controlling factors.

In this seminar I will discuss the results of studies I performed for my Ph.D. dissertation, aiming to contribute to our knowledge of the quantitative diversity of bacterioplankton and factors controlling bacterioplankton diversity.

Next: Mapping small-scale plankton structure