TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ionescu, Danny
A1  - Bizic-Ionescu, Mina
A1  - Khalili, Arzhang
A1  - Malekmohammadi, Reza
A1  - Morad, Reza Mohammad
A1  - de Beer, Dirk
A1  - Grossart, Hans-Peter
T1  - A new tool for long-term studies of POM-bacteria interactions: overcoming the century-old Bottle Effect
JF  - Scientific reports
N2  - Downward fluxes of particulate organic matter (POM) are the major process for sequestering atmospheric CO2 into aquatic sediments for thousands of years. Budget calculations of the biological carbon pump are heavily based on the ratio between carbon export (sedimentation) and remineralization (release to the atmosphere). Current methodologies determine microbial dynamics on POM using closed vessels, which are strongly biased towards heterotrophy due to rapidly changing water chemistry (Bottle Effect). We developed a flow-through rolling tank for long term studies that continuously maintains POM at near in-situ conditions. There, bacterial communities resembled in-situ communities and greatly differed from those in the closed systems. The active particle-associated community in the flow-through system was stable for days, contrary to hours previously reported for closed incubations. In contrast to enhanced respiration rates, the decrease in photosynthetic rates on particles throughout the incubation was much slower in our system than in traditional ones. These results call for reevaluating experimentally-derived carbon fluxes estimated using traditional methods.
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/srep14706
SN  - 2045-2322
VL  - 5
PB  - Nature Publ. Group
CY  - London
ER  -