Warming Causes a Decline in Baltic Sea Coastal Sediment Microbial Abundance.

ABSTRACT: Long-term ocean warming impacts the marine environment, and these effects will be exacerbated by future climate change affecting, e.g., biogeochemical processes and microbial communities. However, how the sediment microbial cell abundance and live/dead ratio respond to warming is poorly understood. In this study, sediment core samples were collected from a Baltic Sea bay artificially heated on average 5°C for > 50 years above a nearby (control) bay unaffected by the heating. Contrary to the expected increased productivity in the heated bay, qPCR-based sediment cell abundances showed decreased cell numbers along the sediment depth gradient in the heated bay compared to the control bay. This could reflect that a portion of the cells' metabolic energy was diverted to a heat related stress res

SUBMITTER: Seidel L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12920023 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature