Photosynthetic characteristics of marine aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria Roseobacter and Erythrobacter strains

A coastal Roseobacter strain of marine aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria (AAnPB) was isolated and phylogenetically determined. The strain OBYS 0001 was characterized by its physiological and biochemical properties with reference to the Erythrobacter longus type strain NBRC 14126. When grown in batch cultures, the growth curves of the both strains were similar. Cellular bacteriochlorophyll a concentrations of the strains reached the maxima in the stationary growth conditions. In vivo fluorescence excitation/optical density spectra between 470 and 600 nm for OBYS 0001 represented higher values than NBRC 14126. Variable fluorescence measurements revealed that the functional absorption cross section (σ) of the bacterial photosynthetic complexes for OBYS 0001 was significantly higher than that for NBRC 14126 under green excitation. These results suggest that Roseobacter can capture green light more efficiently than Erythrobacter for photosynthesis. The photochemical quantum efficiencies (F _v/F _m) of the bacterial photosynthetic complexes for OBYS 0001 were consistently lower than those for NBRC 14126. A relationship between the growth rate and F _v/F _m was significant for OBYS 0001, but that was not found for NBRC 14126. These results suggested that F _v/F _m for AAnPB could not be used as a proxy of the growth rate which is consistent with their mostly heterotrophic characters.