4.5 Article

Sea foams are ephemeral hotspots for distinctive bacterial communities contrasting sea-surface microlayer and underlying surface water

Journal

FEMS MICROBIOLOGY ECOLOGY
Volume 97, Issue 4, Pages -

Publisher

OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/femsec/fiab035

Keywords

air-sea interface; surfactants; particles; 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing; neuston

Categories

Funding

  1. European Research Council (ERC) project Parameterization of the Sea-Surface Microlayer Effect (PASSME) [GA336408]
  2. Leibniz Association project Marine biogenic production, organic aerosols and maritime clouds: a process chain (MarParCloud) [SAW-2016-TROPOS-2]
  3. European Regional Development Fund/Estonian Research Council [MOBTT24, P200028PKKH]

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The study found that marine foams have a high abundance of phototrophic and prokaryotic cells, as well as a high concentration of surface-active substances. The bacterial communities in foams differ significantly from the sea-surface microlayer and underlying water, characterized by a high abundance of Gammaproteobacteria. Despite differences in overall bacterial composition, the presence of SML bacteria in foams suggests that foams are strongly influenced by the SML.
The occurrence of foams at oceans' surfaces is patchy and generally short-lived, but a detailed understanding of bacterial communities inhabiting sea foams is lacking. Here, we investigated how marine foams differ from the sea-surface microlayer (SML), a <1-mm-thick layer at the air-sea interface, and underlying water from 1 m depth. Samples of sea foams, SML and underlying water collected from the North Sea and Timor Sea indicated that foams were often characterized by a high abundance of small eukaryotic phototrophic and prokaryotic cells as well as a high concentration of surface-active substances (SAS). Amplicon sequencing of 16S rRNA (gene) revealed distinctive foam bacterial communities compared with SML and underlying water, with high abundance of Gammaproteobacteria. Typical SML dwellers such as Pseudoalteromonas and Vibrio were highly abundant, active foam inhabitants and thus might enhance foam formation and stability by producing SAS. Despite a clear difference in the overall bacterial community composition between foam and SML, the presence of SML bacteria in foams supports the previous assumption that foam is strongly influenced by the SML. We conclude that active and abundant bacteria from interfacial habitats potentially contribute to foam formation and stability, carbon cycling and air-sea exchange processes in the ocean.

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