AEM
Home Help [Feedback] [For Subscribers] [Archive] [Search] [Contents]
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow An erratum has been published
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Ouverney, C. C.
Right arrow Articles by Fuhrman, J. A.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Ouverney, C. C.
Right arrow Articles by Fuhrman, J. A.
Agricola
Right arrow Articles by Ouverney, C. C.
Right arrow Articles by Fuhrman, J. A.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, November 2000, p. 4829-4833, Vol. 66, No. 11
0099-2240/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Marine Planktonic Archaea Take Up Amino Acids

Cleber C. Ouverney* and Jed A. Fuhrman

Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-0371

Received 21 June 2000/Accepted 14 August 2000

Archaea are traditionally thought of as "extremophiles," but recent studies have shown that marine planktonic Archaea make up a surprisingly large percentage of ocean midwater microbial communities, up to 60% of the total prokaryotes. However, the basic physiology and contribution of Archaea to community microbial activity remain unknown. We have studied Archaea from 200-m depths of the northwest Mediterranean Sea and the Pacific Ocean near California, measuring the archaeal activity under simulated natural conditions (8 to 17°C, dark and anaerobic) by means of a method called substrate tracking autoradiography fluorescence in situ hybridization (STARFISH) that simultaneously detects specific cell types by 16S rRNA probe binding and activity by microautoradiography. In the 200-m-deep Mediterranean and Pacific samples, cells binding the archaeal probes made up about 43 and 14% of the total countable cells, respectively. Our results showed that the Archaea are active in the uptake of dissolved amino acids from natural concentrations (nanomolar) with about 60% of the individuals in the archaeal communities showing measurable uptake. Bacteria showed a similar proportion of active cells. We concluded that a portion of these Archaea is heterotrophic and also appears to coexist successfully with Bacteria in the same water.

* Corresponding author. Present address: Dept. of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305-5124. Phone: (650) 493-5000 (ext. 63163). Fax: (650) 852-3291. E-mail: ouverney{at}stanford.edu.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, November 2000, p. 4829-4833, Vol. 66, No. 11
0099-2240/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


This article has been cited by other articles:



Home Help [Feedback] [For Subscribers] [Archive] [Search] [Contents]
J. Bacteriol. Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. Eukaryot. Cell All ASM Journals

Copyright © 2000 by the American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.