Search

A novel approach, combining total cell counts, environment RNA content and real-time PCR for the quantification of bacteria from the central Baltic Sea, was applied for an uncultured epsilonproteobacterium related to Thiomicrospira denitrificans. The results indicate that the real-time PCR approach can be used to determine cellular and relative abundances of uncultured marine bacterial taxa.

The combination of reporter deposition-fluorescence in situ hybridization with microautoradiography is used to determine the role of Epsilonproteobacteria to dark C[O.sub.2] fixation in the sulfidic areas of central Baltic Sea and Black Sea redoxclines. Epsilonproteobacteria are found to be responsible for chemoautotrophic activity in the dark C[O.sub.2] fixation maxima of the Black Sea and central Baltic Sea redoxclines and might also be relevant in similar habitats of the world's oceans where high dark C[O.sub.2] fixation rates are measured.

A study was conducted to explore the abundance, vertical distribution, and diversity of aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria (AAP) at four basins of the Baltic Sea. The data obtained for the AAP assemblages showed a mixture of marine and freshwater taxa.

16S rRNA cloning and catalyzed reporter deposition and fluorescence in situ hybridization (CARD-FISH) and quantitative PCR measurements are used for determining the abundance, activity and vertical distribution of Epsilonproteobacteria and a Sulfurimonas subgroup in high-resolution profiles of redoxclines of the central Baltic Sea. The results have shown that the clone sequence GD17 is the best-adapted epsilonproteobacterium within this ecological niche.

A newly developed approach consisting of molecular analyses was used to focus on autotrophic denitrification in the Central Baltic Sea. With this method, the bacteria responsible for autotrophic denitrification as a single taxon, an epsilonproteobacterium related to the autotrophic denitrified Thiomicrospira denitrificans was identified.