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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, April 2006, p. 2496-2506, Vol. 72, No. 4
0099-2240/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.72.4.2496-2506.2006
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Abundance and Distribution of Ostreococcus sp. in the San Pedro Channel, California, as Revealed by Quantitative PCR{dagger}

Peter D. Countway* and David A. Caron

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

Received 2 July 2005/ Accepted 23 January 2006

Ostreococcus is a genus of widely distributed marine phytoplankton which are picoplanktonic in size (<2 µm) and capable of rapid growth. Although Ostreococcus has been detected around the world, little quantitative information exists on its contribution to planktonic communities. We designed and implemented a genus-specific TaqMan-based quantitative PCR (qPCR) assay to investigate the dynamics and ecology of Ostreococcus at the USC Microbial Observatory (eastern North Pacific). Samples were collected from 5 m and the deep chlorophyll maximum (DCM) between September 2000 and August 2002. Ostreococcus abundance at 5 m was generally <5.0 x 103 cells ml–1, with a maximum of 8.2 x 104 cells ml–1. Ostreococcus abundance was typically higher at the DCM, with a maximum of 3.2 x 105 cells ml–1. The vertical distribution of Ostreococcus was examined in March 2005 and compared to the distribution of phototrophic picoeukaryotes (PPE) measured by flow cytometry. The largest contribution to PPE abundance by Ostreococcus was ~70% and occurred at 30 m, near the DCM. Despite its relatively low abundance, the depth-integrated standing stock of Ostreococcus in March 2005 was ~30 mg C m–2. Our work provides a new technique for quantifying the abundance of Ostreococcus and demonstrates the seasonal dynamics of this genus and its contribution to picoeukaryote biomass at our coastal sampling station.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0371. Phone: (213) 821-2123. Fax: (213) 740-8123. E-mail: countway{at}usc.edu.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://aem.asm.org/.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, April 2006, p. 2496-2506, Vol. 72, No. 4
0099-2240/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.72.4.2496-2506.2006
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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