EAPS

Metabolites of the Marine Carbon and Sulfur Cycles

Abstract:
Marine microbes interface through the exchange of organic molecules that function variously as substrates, co-factors, and signals, and these interactions affect biogeochemical processes in ways that we are just beginning to understand. The mechanism by which much of the chemical exchange occurs is through release of metabolites from autotrophic microbes into seawater, followed by rapid and efficient uptake by heterotrophic microbes. We focused on this exometabolite exchange using model systems consisting of co-cultured phytoplankton and bacteria that were interrogated using both biological and chemical approaches. Within the complex networks of marine microbial communities, high flux/low concentration compounds are among the most difficult to characterize but play critical roles in carbon turnover in the surface ocean.