Sea foams are ephemeral hotspots for distinctive bacterial communities contrasting sea-surface microlayer and underlying surface water.

ABSTRACT: The occurrence of foams at oceans' surfaces is patchy and generally short-lived, but a detailed understanding of bacterial communities inhabiting sea foams is lacking. Here, we investigated how marine foams differ from the sea-surface microlayer (SML), a <1-mm-thick layer at the air-sea interface, and underlying water from 1 m depth. Samples of sea foams, SML and underlying water collected from the North Sea and Timor Sea indicated that foams were often characterized by a high abundance of small eukaryotic phototrophic and prokaryotic cells as well as a high concentration of surface-active substances (SAS). Amplicon sequencing of 16S rRNA (gene) revealed distinctive foam bacterial communities compared with SML and underlying water, with high abundance of Gammaproteobacteria. Typical SML dw

SUBMITTER: Rahlff J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8012113 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature