Molecular ecology of marine microorganisms

Molecular Ecology of Marine Algal Viruses

Molecular ecology of the marine cyanobacterial genera Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus.

Oxygenic photoautotrophs of the genera Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus contribute significantly to primary production and are now widely accepted as the most abundant members of the picophytoplankton in the world's oceans. Since they represent one of the few cultured and representative groups of marine microorganisms, study of their physiology and biochemistry has progressed rapidly since the...

Diversity and ecology of psychrophilic microorganisms.

Cold environments represent the majority of the biosphere on Earth and have been successfully colonized by psychrophilic microorganisms that are able to thrive at low temperatures and to survive and even maintain metabolic activity at subzero temperatures. These microorganisms play key ecological roles in their habitats and include a wide diversity of representatives of all three domains (Bacte...

Chitinases from uncultured marine microorganisms.

Our understanding of the degradation of organic matter will benefit from a greater appreciation for the genes encoding enzymes involved in the hydrolysis of biopolymers such as chitin, one of the most abundant polymers in nature. To isolate representative and abundant chitinase genes from uncultivated marine bacteria, we constructed libraries of genomic DNA isolated from coastal and estuarine w...

Secondary metabolites from marine microorganisms.

After 40 years of intensive research, chemistry of marine natural products has become a mature field. Since 1995, there are signals of decreased interest in the search of new metabolites from traditional sources such as macroalgae and octocorals, and the number of annual reports on marine sponges stabilized. On the contrary, metabolites from microorganisms is a rapidly growing field, due, at le...