Bacterioplankton Secondary Production Estimates for Coastal Waters of British Columbia, Antarctica, and California

TLDR

The study aimed to quantify heterotrophic bacterioplankton production rates in coastal waters. Production was estimated using two complementary methods: tracking bacterial abundance increases in filtered seawater and measuring tritiated thymidine incorporation in unfractionated seawater. The methods yielded comparable results across Saanich Inlet, McMurdo Sound, and Scripps Pier, showing lower production in Antarctica, a significant share of primary production utilized by bacterioplankton, and notable growth even without large particles, highlighting their quantitative importance in coastal marine food webs.

Abstract

The principal objective of this study was to quantify the rate of heterotrophic bacterioplankton production. Production was estimated by two approaches: (i) measurement of increasing bacterial abundance with time in filtered (3-μm pore size) seawater and (ii) estimation of bacterial deoxyribonucleic acid synthesis by tritiated thymidine incorporation in unfractionated seawater. The two approaches yielded comparable results when used at the Controlled Ecosystem Population Experiment (Saanich Inlet, British Columbia, Canada), at McMurdo Sound (Antarctica), and off Scripps Pier (La Jolla, Calif.). Estimated bacterioplankton production was lower in Antarctic samples (ranging from ∼0 to 2.9 μg of C liter −1 day −1 ) than in those from the other two sites (ranging from 0.7 to 71 μg of C liter −1 day −1 ). In all three regions studied, it appeared that a significant fraction of the total primary production was utilized by the bacterioplankton and that substantial growth could occur in the absence of large particles. These results support the conclusion that bacterioplankton are a quantitatively important component of coastal marine food webs.