Speaker
Description
Seasonality in the conditions for life is a ubiquitous phenomenon in the grand majority of biomes at the Earth’s surface. In aquatic environments, reasonably predictable temporal dynamics in physicochemical conditions of for example temperature and nutrients along with biotic variables set the stage for successional changes in planktonic food webs. This is frequently first noted as changes in phytoplankton dynamics to which bacteria respond but also interactively influence through a variety of feedback processes. These reciprocal interactions have a major influence on the biogeochemical cycles of carbon and macro- and micro-nutrients. The availability of time-series data from a variety of marine stations in different seas currently casts light on the factors that regulate bacterial community structure and the associated bacterial ecosystem functions contributed by different bacterial taxa. This presentation will provide examples of how molecular biology data on bacterioplankton temporal dynamics from the Baltic Sea and other marine environments can be used to gain novel insights into some of the complex processes that shape the seasonality in bacterial growth and its consequences.
