Vertical Distribution of Bacteria in Marine Sediments

Abstract

ABSTRACT Off the coast of Southern California bacteria are more abundant in marine sediments than in the overlying water, there being thousands to millions per gram of sediment and only a few hundred or less per milliliter of water. The distribution of bacteria in the sediment is more or less independent of the depth of the overlying water, the temperature of the ocean floor, and the distance from mainland. The bacterial population seems to be influenced more greatly by the organic content of the sediments than by other factors. Vertical sections from cores 40 to 75 cm. in length show that the number of bacteria in the sediments decreases greatly with depth in the upper 5 cm. of the core and more slowly beyond. In the surface slime, aerobes are 5 to 100 times more plentiful than anaerobes, but at depths exceeding 15 centimeters about as many anaerobes as aerobes are present. Both anaerobes and aerobes have been demonstrated at all depths analyzed. The oxidation-reduction potential (intensity factor expressed as Eh) increases with core depth, although the oxygen-absorbing capacity decreases with depth. Both properties are ascribed primarily to bacterial activity. Bacteria recovered from marine sediments exhibit many biochemical processes such as ammonification, proteolysis, nitrate reduction, nitrification, urea fermentation, chitin digestion, methane production, fat hydrolysis, cellulose decomposition, glucose, xylose, and arabinose fermentation and starch hydrolysis.