Beyond peak season: Bacteria in the Arctic seabed are active all year round idw-online.de - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from idw-online.de Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Seawater is full of bacteria, hundreds of thousands live in every liter. But the sheer number of bacteria living in the water does not necessarily mean a lot. More important is how active they are and how quickly they duplicate.
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IMAGE: Seasonal blooms of tiny algae play an important role in marine carbon cycling. Now a new detail of the surrounding mysteries has been uncovered. view more
Credit: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology / G. Reintjes
The annually occurring algal spring blooms play an important role for our climate, as they remove large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, they are an ephemeral phenomenon. Most of the carbon is released into the water once the algae die. There, bacteria are already waiting to finish them off and consume the algal remains.
Previous studies have shown that in these blooms, different algae can come out on top each year. However, within the bacteria subsequently degrading the algae, the same specialised groups prevail year after year. Apparently not the algae themselves but rather their components - above all chains of sugar molecules, the so-called polysaccharides - determine which bacteria will thrive. However, th