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Cultivable bacteria from bulk water, aggregates, and surface sediments of a tidal flat ecosystem

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Abstract

Most-probable-number (MPN) dilution series were used to enumerate and isolate bacteria from bulk water, suspended aggregates, the oxic layer, and the oxic–anoxic transition zone of the sediment of a tidal flat ecosystem in the southern North Sea. The heterotrophic aerobic bacteria were able to grow on agar-agar, alginate, cellulose, chitin, dried and ground Fucus vesiculosus, Marine Broth 2216, palmitate, and starch. MPN counts of bulk water and aggregate samples ranged between 0.18 × 101 and 1.1 × 106 cells per milliliter and those of the sediment surface and the transition zone between 0.8 × 101 and 5.1 × 107 cells per gram dry weight. Marine Broth and F. vesiculosus yielded the highest values of all substrates tested and corresponded to 2.3–32% of 4,6-diamidinophenyl indole cell counts. Strains of seven phylogenetic classes were obtained: Actinobacteria, Bacilli, α- and γ-Proteobacteria, Sphingobacteria, Flavobacteria, and Planctomycetacia. Only with agar-agar as substrate could organisms of all seven classes be isolated.

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Acknowledgements

We thank O. Larsen for microsensor measurements and A. Friedrich for helpful discussions on the concept of the study. We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions on an earlier version of this publication. This work was supported by grants from the Volkswagen Foundation within the Lower Saxonian priority program Marine Biotechnology and by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft within the research group BioGeoChemistry of Tidal Flats.

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  1. Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, 26111, Oldenburg, Germany

    Heike Stevens, Meinhard Simon & Thorsten Brinkhoff

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  1. Heike Stevens
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Correspondence to Thorsten Brinkhoff.

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Stevens, H., Simon, M. & Brinkhoff, T. Cultivable bacteria from bulk water, aggregates, and surface sediments of a tidal flat ecosystem. Ocean Dynamics 59, 291–304 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10236-008-0168-z

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