Symbiotic relationships are widespread in nature and are fundamental for ecosystem functioning and the evolution of biodiversity. In marine environments, photosymbiosis with microalgae is best known for sustaining benthic coral reef ecosystems. Despite the importance of oceanic microbiota in global ecology and biogeochemical cycles, symbioses are poorly characterized in open ocean plankton. Her...

Although organisms of the order Schizomida are not widely distributed in caves throughout the world, they can, eventually, be abundant in certain regions, becoming a major faunal element in some caves. The majority of works on this order includes species descriptions, with rare references to behavioral aspects. As such, the present study describes the behavioral repertoire, and the activity and...

Aquatic microorganisms are typically identified as either oligotrophic or copiotrophic, representing trophic strategies adapted to low or high nutrient concentrations, respectively. Here, we sought to take steps towards identifying these and additional adaptations to nutrient availability with a quantitative analysis of microbial resource use in mixed communities. We incubated an estuarine micr...

Due to the increasing oligotrophy of Lake Ammersee, southern Germany, metalimnic Planktothrix have become one of the dominant planktonic species causing regular blooms. Whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus) is the dominant local fish species with great importance for the fishing industry. Recently, whole age groups of this fish species have disappeared and since 1991, average body-weight has decrease...

As a part of a multi-disciplinary study of the biological production in 12 Tuamotu atoll lagoons, we assessed phytoplankton and bacterioplankton biomass and production. The only consistently significant differences were those existing between lagoons, without any other spatial or seasonal signal. Compared with the surrounding oligotrophic ocean, lagoons displayed an increase in trophic status r...

Marine phototroph and heterotroph interactions are vital in maintaining the nutrient balance in the oceans as essential nutrients need to be rapidly cycled before sinking to aphotic layers. The aim of this study was to highlight the molecular mechanisms that drive these interactions. For this, we generated a detailed exoproteomic time-course analysis of a 100-day co-culture between the model ma...

Twin Cays (Belize) is a highly oligotrophic mangrove archipelago dominated by Rhizophora mangle L. Ocean-fringing trees are 3–7 m tall with a leaf area index (LAI) of 2.3, whereas in the interior, dwarf zone, trees are 1.5 m or less, and the LAI is 0.7. P-fertilization of dwarf trees dramatically increases growth. As a partial explanation of these characteristics, it was hypothesized that diffe...

The Cuatro Ciénegas Basin (CCB) is an oasis in the desert of Mexico characterized by low phosphorus availability and by its great diversity of microbial mats. We compared the metagenomes of two aquatic microbial mats from the CCB with different nutrient limitations. We observed that the red mat was P-limited and dominated by Pseudomonas, while the green mat was N-limited and had higher species ...

Planktonic bacteria dominate surface ocean biomass and influence global biogeochemical processes, but remain poorly characterized owing to difficulties in cultivation. Using large-scale single cell genomics, we obtained insight into the genome content and biogeography of many bacterial lineages inhabiting the surface ocean. We found that, compared with existing cultures, natural bacterioplankto...