Abstract
Microbial communities distribute heterogeneously at small-scales (mm-cm) due to physical, chemical and biological processes. To understand microbial processes and functions it is necessary to appreciate microbes and matter at small scales, however, few studies have determined microbial, viral, and biogeochemical distribution over space and time at these scales. In this study, the small-scale spatial and temporal distribution of microbes (bacteria and chlorophyll a), viruses, dissolved inorganic nutrients and dissolved organic carbon were determined at five locations (spatial) along the Great Barrier Reef (Australia), and over 4 consecutive days (temporal) at a coastal location. Our results show that: (1) the parameters show high small-scale heterogeneity; (2) none of the parameters measured explained the bacterial abundance distributions at these scales spatially or temporally; (3) chemical (ammonium, nitrate/nitrite, phosphate, dissolved organic carbon, and total dissolved nitrogen) and biological (chl a, and bacterial and viral abundances) measurements did not reveal significant relationships at the small scale; and (4) statistically significant differences were found between sites/days for all parameter measured but without a clear pattern.
Highlights
Marine bacterioplankton and phytoplankton and their associated functions are the primary controls of energy and material cycling in the global ocean
As microbes interact at the cellular level, it is essential to describe microbial community ecology at small scales to capture the microbial functions and productivity in marine environments (Azam & Malfatti, 2007; Stocker, 2015)
Maximum differences observed between two nearby points in the spatial and temporal studies were of 2.6 x and 3.6 x, respectively (Figs. 3 and 4)
Summary
Marine bacterioplankton and phytoplankton and their associated functions are the primary controls of energy and material cycling in the global ocean. It has been demonstrated that prokaryotes can move towards a chemical cue (chemotactic behaviour), as a response to point sources of organic and inorganic matter (Malmcrona-Friberg, Goodman & Kjelleberg, 1990; Hütz & Overmann, 2011) This chemotactic behaviour has been suggested to increase the microbial degradation of dissolved organic matter (DOM) (Fenchel, 2002), and heterogeneous environments are suggested to have higher phytoplankton production than found under homogeneous condition (Brentnall et al, 2003). Such findings have implications for the way we frame marine biogeochemical cycling by microbes. None of these have measured the chemical (organic and inorganic) components interacting with the microbes at small scales in a natural ecosystem
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