Bacterial response to glucose addition: growth and community structure in seawater microcosms from North Pacific Ocean.

Onboard microcosm experiments were conducted to assess how bacterial growth pattern and community structure changed by the addition of labile organic compound during the KH-14-2 cruise of R/V Hakuho Maru (Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, the University of Tokyo and JAMSTEC) in May-June 2014. Seawater samples were collected from the three diversified oceanic environments, Kuroshio Current, North Pacific Sub-polar Gyre (SPG), and North Pacific Sub-tropical Gyre (STG) in the western North Pacific Ocean, filtered, supplemented with glucose, and incubated at 23 ± 1 °C, ~ 4 °C, and 23 ± 1 °C, respectively. Untreated control microcosms were also maintained for all the sample types. Significant increases in cell counts and cell sizes were observed in Kuroshio Current and STG waters, whereas in SPG neither the counts nor the sizes changed, even after 120 h of incubation. At early stages of incubation, the classes Bacteroidia, Alphaproteobacteria, and Gammaproteobacteria were dominant in the Kuroshio Current and SPG samples, while the phyla Cyanobacteria and Proteobacteria in the STG samples. Over incubation periods between 60 and 96 h, some members of the class Gammaproteobacteria gradually dominated within which the genera Vibrio and Alteromonas became dominant in the Kuroshio Current and STG, respectively. No growth was detected for the microcosms with seawater from SPG, regardless of glucose amendment. It is concluded that depending on the environmental condition, certain different bacterial groups proliferated quickly and modified the community structures. Temperature significantly influenced the growth and succession, and ultimately the community structure of bacteria.

Vibrio azureus sp. nov., a luminous marine bacterium isolated from seawater.

Two luminous marine bacterial strains, LC2-005(T) and LC2-102, were isolated from seawater at Kuroshio Region and Sagami Bay in Japan, respectively. These bacteria were Gram-negative, oxidase-positive, catalase-positive, motile and rod-shaped. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, strains LC2-005(T) and LC2-102 formed a cluster within the Vibrio harveyi species group. However, multilocus sequence analysis using five loci (pyrH, ftsZ, mreB, gyrB and gapA) and DNA-DNA hybridization experiments indicated that these strains were distinct from the currently known Vibrio species. Additionally, these strains differ from related Vibrio species in utilization of glucose, mannitol, inositol, sorbitol, rhamnose, sucrose, melibiose and arabinose, production of lysine decarboxylase, ornithine decarboxylase, tryptophan deaminase, esterase (C4), lipase (C4), chymotrypsin, acid phosphatase, alpha-glucosidase, beta-glucosidase and N-acetyl-beta-glucosaminidase and the ability to reduce nitrate to nitrite. The major fatty acids were C(15 : 0) iso 2-OH and/or C(16 : 1)omega7c, C(16 : 0), C(18 : 1)omega7c and C(14 : 0). The DNA G+C contents of strains LC2-005(T) and LC2-102 were 45.2 and 45.5 mol%, respectively. On the basis of the polyphasic taxonomic evidence presented in this study, it can be concluded that strains LC2-005(T) and LC2-102 belong to the same genospecies and represent a novel species of the genus Vibrio, for which the name Vibrio azureus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is LC2-005(T) (=NBRC 104587(T) =KCTC 22352(T)).