Estimating bacterial mortality by the disappearance of 3H-labeled intracellular DNA |
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Authors: | P Servais G Billen J Martinez J Vives-Rego |
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Institution: | Microbiologie des Milieux Aquatiques, UniversitéLibre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium;Departamento de Microbiologia, Facultad de Biologia, Universidad de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain |
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Abstract: | Abstract A method proposed for estimating the rate of bacterial mortality in aquatic environments consists in following the disappearance of radioactive tracer from the macromolecular fraction of 3H-thymidine labeled natural assemblages of bacteria. The data presented in this paper offer a further technical validation of this procedure. Application of the method to North and Mediterranean Sea, estuaries, rivers and lakes yields first order mortality constant in the range 0.008–0.06 h−1. Mortality due to grazing by protozoans retained by 2 μm filtration range from 20 to 90% of the mortality detected by the method. |
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Keywords: | 3H-Thymidine labeling Nanoflagellates grazing Bacteriophage-induced mortality |
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