Abstract
Particulate DNA was measured in estuarine, coastal, and oligotrophic oceanic environments near the southwest coast of Florida and in the Gulf of Mexico. Particulate organic carbon and nitrogen (POC and PON), chlorophyll a, bacterial direct counts, DNA, and bacterial activity as determined by thymidine incorporation all showed a high degree of intercorrelation. Normalization of the data for offshore/onshore similarities by dividing by POC yielded significant correlations only for DNA, direct counts, and bacterial activity. Most (70–99%) of the particulate DNA in offshore samples was in the 0.2- to 1-μm fraction, while DNA in nearshore and estuarine samples was associated with larger particles. Cellular DNA contents obtained by dividing DNA by direct counts in the 0.2- to 1-μm fraction were in the range of reported bacterial genome weights. However, DNA nitrogen comprised a greater proportion of the PON than reported for microorganisms in culture. Collectively, these results suggest that (1) most of the particulate DNA in oceanic environments is contained in bacterioplankton; (2) DNA is a significant proportion of the cell biomass, possibly due to growth under nutrientlimiting conditions.
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Communicated by J. M. Lawrence, Tampa
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Paul, J.H., Jeffrey, W.H. & DeFlaun, M. Particulate DNA in subtropical oceanic and estuarine planktonic environments. Marine Biology 90, 95–101 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00428219
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00428219