The native bacterioplankton community in the central baltic sea is influenced by freshwater bacterial species.

ABSTRACT: The Baltic Sea is one of the largest brackish environments on Earth. Despite extensive knowledge about food web interactions and pelagic ecosystem functioning, information about the bacterial community composition in the Baltic Sea is scarce. We hypothesized that due to the eutrophic low-salinity environment and the long water residence time (>5 years), the bacterioplankton community from the Baltic proper shows a native "brackish" composition influenced by both freshwater and marine phylotypes. The bacterial community composition in surface water (3-m depth) was examined at a single station throughout a full year. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) showed that the community composition changed over the year. Further, it indicated that at the four extensive samplings (16S rRNA

SUBMITTER: Riemann L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2223248 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature