Researchers report that bacterioplankton, cornerstones of microbial food webs in aquatic ecosystems that can modulate Earth's climate, are more reliant on external sources of vitamin B1 or its precursors than previously thought; metagenomic analyses revealed that diverse bacterioplankton need external vitamin B1 or its precursors to survive, and time-series data and nutrient amendment experiments from the Baltic Sea implicate vitamin B1 and precursor availability as a limiting factor of bacterioplankton growth and, thus, nutrient cycling in aquatic ecosystems.
Article #18-06425: "Prevalent reliance of bacterioplankton on exogenous vitamin B1 and precursor availability," by Ryan Paerl et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Ryan Paerl, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC; tel: 252-732-4858; e-mail: rpaerl@ncsu.edu
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences