Microbes on the menu

July 28, 2010 in Biology / Cell & Microbiology
Phytoplankton in mixed communities.

The functioning of marine ecosystems depends on the size and flavor of microbes at the base of the food chain. Changes to the Earth's atmosphere might rearrange that microscopic menu. Microbes that currently are the main course for other organisms might get harder to find in the future, and microbes that are now inconspicuous as members of a "rare biosphere" might become more common.

Four biologists at USC College have started work on a project funded by the National Science Foundation to examine the changes that might occur within communities of as seawater becomes more acidic, a change that is happening as the rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are absorbed by the ocean.


"The change that is happening is very complex — it won't be just an increase in carbon dioxide in the water or an increase in temperature," Schnetzer said. "Global climate change will affect a whole suite of ocean properties, directly or indirectly, in the coming decades."


During the three-year study, Schnetzer and her colleagues will look within natural communities of microbes for specific species that can beat their competitors because they acclimate better to the altered temperature and chemistry of seawater in a "greenhouse world." The researchers will isolate microbes that pass the "acclimation test," cultivate them for several generations and then recombine them to examine the structure of their communities under conditions that are predicted for the future.

"The species that can acclimate better to changes in CO2 levels will have a competitive advantage," Schnetzer said.

The new study at USC will do more than evaluate the individual species that might survive the marine conditions that are predicted for the future. It will monitor the growth rates and elemental composition of phytoplankton under new conditions and the "functional groups" of organisms that might emerge in the future.

"The reason the primary producers are so important is because, ultimately, they're the base of ," Schnetzer said. "Whatever affects them will affect anything else that's higher up. That means the protozoa that graze on them, the zooplankton that graze on them, small crustaceans, fish — and somewhere up that food chain we find ourselves."


Seawater absorbs carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and the primary producers convert dissolved CO2 into plant matter. Schnetzer said the microbes are on the front lines of "carbon sequestration" on a global scale, but changes to the temperature and chemistry of seawater in a "greenhouse world" might change the growth rates of the primary producers. That would change the rate at which they remove carbon dioxide from the water and their capacity to assist in the sequestration of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Schnetzer said changes in water chemistry also might open a window of opportunity for species of microbes that typically exist at very low numbers. Organisms that are now part of this "rare " might thrive under new conditions, and in some cases they might become very conspicuous members of a new order.
"Harmful algal blooms could be considered a 'real world' example of the rare biosphere," Schnetzer said. "You know that these species of algae are around, but they're not really abundant; they're somewhere in the very background of what's present at any given time. Then, something in the environment changes, a window of opportunity opens and they suddenly take over and dominate."

The ocean naturally absorbs carbon dioxide from the air. Over the course of millions of years, the balance of CO2 in the air and in seawater reached equilibrium, and so did the chemistry of the seawater. But the burning of fossil fuels for energy adds billions of tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year, and as the atmosphere becomes more saturated with carbon dioxide, so does the . The marine life we know today is suited for the equilibrium as it exists now, but rising levels of in the environment are pushing ocean chemistry out of this age-old balance.

Source USC College News

"Microbes on the menu" July 28, 2010 http://phys.org/news/2010-07-microbes-menu.html