Response of a summertime Antarctic marine ­bacterial community to glucose and ammonium enrichment

Abstract

AME Aquatic Microbial Ecology Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsSpecials AME 64:205-220 (2011) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/ame01519 Response of a summertime Antarctic marine ­bacterial community to glucose and ammonium enrichment Hugh W. Ducklow1,*, Kristen M. S. Myers1, Matthew Erickson1, Jean-François Ghiglione2,3, Alison E. Murray4 1Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543, USA 2CNRS, UMR 7621, Laboratoire d’Océanographie Biologique de Banyuls, BP44, 66650 Banyuls-sur-Mer cedex, France 3UPMC Univ Paris 06, UMR 7621, Laboratoire ARAGO, Avenue Fontaulé, BP44, 66650 Banyuls-sur-Mer, France 4Desert Research Institute, Reno, Nevada 89512, USA *Email: hducklow@mbl.edu ABSTRACT: Along the western Antarctic Peninsula, marine bacterioplankton respond to the spring phytoplankton bloom with increases in abundance, production and growth rates, and a seasonal succession in bacterial community composition (BCC). We investigated the response of the bacterial community to experimental additions of glucose and ammonium, alone or in combination, incubated in replicate carboys (each: 50 l) over 10 d in November 2006. Changes in bulk properties (abundance, production rates) in the incubations resembled observations in the nearshore environment over 8 seasons (2001 to 2002 through 2008 to 2009) at Palmer Stn (64.8°S, 64.1°W). Changes in bulk properties and BCC in ammonium-amended carboys were small relative to controls, compared to the glucose-amended treatments. The BCC in Day 0 and Day 10 controls and ammonium treatments were >72% similar when assessed by denaturing-gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), length heterogeneity polymerase chain reaction (LH-PCR) and capillary electrophoresis single-strand conformation polymorphism (CE-SSCP) fingerprinting techniques. Bacterial abundance increased 2- to 10-fold and leucine incorporation rates increased 2- to 30-fold in the glucose treatments over 6 d. The BCC in carboys receiving glucose (with or without ammonium) remained >60% similar to that in Day 0 controls at 6 d and evolved to <20% similar to that in Day 0 controls after 10 d incubation. The increases in bacterial production rates, and the changes in BCC, suggest that selection for glucose-utilizing bacteria was slow under the ambient environmental conditions. The results suggest that organic carbon enrichment is a major factor influencing the observed winter-to-summer increase in bacterial abundance and activity. In contrast, the BCC was relatively robust, changing little until after repeated additions of glucose and prolonged (~10 d) incubation. KEY WORDS: Antarctica · Bacterial community composition · Bioassay · Marine bacterioplankton Full text in pdf format NextCite this article as: Ducklow HW, Myers KMS, Erickson M, Ghiglione JF, Murray AE (2011) Response of a summertime Antarctic marine ­bacterial community to glucose and ammonium enrichment. Aquat Microb Ecol 64:205-220. https://doi.org/10.3354/ame01519 Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in AME Vol. 64, No. 3. Online publication date: September 20, 2011 Print ISSN: 0948-3055; Online ISSN: 1616-1564 Copyright © 2011 Inter-Research.