Metrics
46 Record Views
Journal article
Latitudinal gradients in degradation of marine dissolved organic carbon
PloS one, Vol.2011(12), e28900
12/28/2011
PMCID: PMC3247214
PMID: 22216139
Web of Science ID: WOS:000300676300016
Abstract
Heterotrophic microbial communities cycle nearly half of net primary productivity in the ocean, and play a particularly important role in transformations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC). The specific means by which these communities mediate the transformations of organic carbon are largely unknown, since the vast majority of marine bacteria have not been isolated in culture, and most measurements of DOC degradation rates have focused on uptake and metabolism of either bulk DOC or of simple model compounds (e.g. specific amino acids or sugars). Genomic investigations provide information about the potential capabilities of organisms and communities but not the extent to which such potential is expressed. We tested directly the capabilities of heterotrophic microbial communities in surface ocean waters at 32 stations spanning latitudes from 76 degrees S to 79 degrees N to hydrolyze a range of high molecular weight organic substrates and thereby initiate organic matter degradation. These data demonstrate the existence of a latitudinal gradient in the range of complex substrates available to heterotrophic microbial communities, paralleling the global gradient in bacterial species richness. As changing climate increasingly affects the marine environment, changes in the spectrum of substrates accessible by microbial communities may lead to shifts in the location and rate at which marine DOC is respired. Since the inventory of DOC in the ocean is comparable in magnitude to the atmospheric CO (sub 2) reservoir, such a change could profoundly affect the global carbon cycle.
Files and links (1)
Related links
Details
- Title
- Latitudinal gradients in degradation of marine dissolved organic carbon
- Publication Details
- PloS one, Vol.2011(12), e28900
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science
- Format
- link
- Number of pages
- 6
- Grant note
- This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (Dr. Arnosti ,Dr. Jeffrey), EPA Graduate Fellowship (Dr. Steen), and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Postdoctoral Fellowship (Dr. Ziervogel). The authors are also grateful to the Max-Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology (Bremen) for supporting the work on Svalbard. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
- Copyright
- © 2011 Arnosti etal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- Identifiers
- WOS:000300676300016; 99380184624806600
- Academic Unit
- Hal Marcus College of Science and Engineering ; Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bioremediation
- Language
- English