Diversity and abundance of Gram positive bacteria in a tidal flat ecosystem

Abstract

Gram positive bacteria recently have been identified as important components of freshwater ecosystems and are also present in marine environments. However, their quantitative significance and possible role in the latter systems is still little studied, in particular in coastal regions. Therefore, we investigated the abundance and composition of Gram positive bacteria in the Wadden Sea, a tidal flat ecosystem in the German Bight of the North Sea. Applying fluorescence in situ hybridization we found that Actinobacteria constitute 4-7% of total bacteria in the Wadden Sea and slightly higher proportions in a freshwater drainage channel connected to the sea by a sluice. The application of denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis of 16S rRNA gene fragments after amplification by an Actinobacteria-specific primer set and subsequent sequencing showed that the composition of the actinobacterial community in the Wadden Sea was distinctly different from that in the freshwater system. A bacterial clone library of 111 clones yielded eight Gram positive phylotypes which are related closely to other marine phylotypes including the Marine Actinobacteria Clade but also to freshwater phylotypes. We applied dilution cultures, enriched with various biopolymers, Marine Broth and Fucus vesiculosus extracts, for isolating bacteria from the bulk water, suspended aggregates, the oxic surface and oxic/anoxic transition zone of the sediment. Fifty-three isolates affiliated to seven families of the order Actinomycetales and nine isolates to the family Bacillaceae. The salinity range (1-45 per thousand NaCl) and growth optimum of 14 strains from various families showed that all except one strain exhibited a rather broad range of sustained growth from 1 per thousand to >or= 20 per thousand NaCl and several strains exhibited an optimum of > 10 per thousand NaCl. The results indicate that the Gram positive bacterial community in the Wadden Sea is surprisingly diverse and consists mainly of indigenous species which appear to be well adapted to the environmental conditions of this coastal ecosystem.