Biogeochemical cycling of copper in the Northeast Pacific Ocean : role of marine heterotrophic bacteria ...

• Main Author: Posacka, Anna
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2017
• Subjects: Subarctic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.14288/1.0355246; https://doi.library.ubc.ca/10.14288/1.0355246

Copper (Cu) is important in regulating microbial activity in the ocean, as it can act both as a limiting nutrient and a toxic inhibitor depending on its concentration. Yet, our knowledge of its biogeochemical cycle is limited in many oceanic regions including the subarctic Northeast (NE) Pacific, as is our knowledge of Cu nutrition in marine heterotrophic bacteria. To address this, I investigated Cu biogeochemical cycling along a coastal‒oceanic transect, Line P, in the subarctic NE Pacific (Chapter 2). I also explored physiological responses to varying Cu availability (limiting to sufficient) of taxonomically diverse heterotrophic bacteria, which include isolates from surface waters of the Line P transect (Flavobacteriia member: Dokdonia sp. Dokd-P16, and Gammaproteobacteria members Pseudoalteromonas sp. strain PAlt-P2 [coastal] and PAlt-P26 [oceanic]), and a member of the marine Roseobacter clade within class Alphaproteobacteria (Ruegeria pomeroyi DSS-3). Several important processes were identified to ...