Water
The oceans cover 71% of the Earth’s surface and comprises >95% of Earth’s probable living space. In contrast to most terrestrial habitats, life in the sea is dominated, both in terms of biomass and metabolism, by microorganisms from all three domains of life (Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya). As habitats of many life forms, oceans are unique in many physical and chemical properties including temperature, pressure, salinity, dissolved nutrients, oxygen and light which vary greatly over space and time. Metagenomics has moved beyond the species-centered, culture-centric realm of microbial cultivation and individual genome sequencing of isolated microorganisms to allow sequencing entire microbial communities en masse and simultaneously. As a result, staggering quantities of information, including millions of new genes, new microbial phylotypes, and novel metabolic pathways, are being revealed from the oceans at an unprecedented rate.
The Baltic Sea is the second largest brackish water reservoir on Earth, serving as a drainage area for about 90 million people in 14 different countries. It is a shallow sea characterized by high nutrient concentrations, surface water salinity gradient, stratification of the water column and oxygen depletion. The Baltic Sea is unique habitat for marine, freshwater and brackish species, but is also considered to be one of the most polluted seas in the world.
In fall of 2010 BiotaP LLC started cooperation with Marine Systems Institute at Tallinn University of Technology to carry out high-resolution study of bacterioplankton composition dynamics in the Gulf of Finland. Since then we have obtained the know-how of water sampling and developed cost-effective filtration system. The method minimizes chance of contamination and also by using pre-filters, it is possible to divide microbes into different size fractions.
Literature:
JiaSong Fang & Li Zhang. “Genomics, metagenomics, and microbial oceanography—A sea of opportunities”, SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences, Vol. 54, No. 4. (April 2011)
David M. Karl. “Microbial oceanography: paradigms, processes and promise”, Nature Reviews Microbiology 5, (October 2007)
Koskinen et al. “Spatially differing bacterial communities in water columns of the northern Baltic Sea.” FEMS Microbiol Ecol. 2011
