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Resolving the abundance and air-sea fluxes of airborne microorganisms in the North Atlantic Ocean
Airborne transport of microbes may play a central role in microbial dispersal, the maintenance of diversity in aquatic systems and in meteorological processes such as cloud formation. Yet, there is almost no information about the abundance and fate of microbes over the oceans, which cover >70% of...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2014
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4215616/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25400625 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2014.00557 |
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author | Mayol, Eva Jiménez, María A. Herndl, Gerhard J. Duarte, Carlos M. Arrieta, Jesús M. |
author_facet | Mayol, Eva Jiménez, María A. Herndl, Gerhard J. Duarte, Carlos M. Arrieta, Jesús M. |
author_sort | Mayol, Eva |
collection | PubMed |
description | Airborne transport of microbes may play a central role in microbial dispersal, the maintenance of diversity in aquatic systems and in meteorological processes such as cloud formation. Yet, there is almost no information about the abundance and fate of microbes over the oceans, which cover >70% of the Earth's surface and are the likely source and final destination of a large fraction of airborne microbes. We measured the abundance of microbes in the lower atmosphere over a transect covering 17° of latitude in the North Atlantic Ocean and derived estimates of air-sea exchange of microorganisms from meteorological data. The estimated load of microorganisms in the atmospheric boundary layer ranged between 6 × 10(4) and 1.6 × 10(7) microbes per m(2) of ocean, indicating a very dynamic air-sea exchange with millions of microbes leaving and entering the ocean per m(2) every day. Our results show that about 10% of the microbes detected in the boundary layer were still airborne 4 days later and that they could travel up to 11,000 km before they entered the ocean again. The size of the microbial pool hovering over the North Atlantic indicates that it could play a central role in the maintenance of microbial diversity in the surface ocean and contribute significantly to atmospheric processes. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4215616 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2014 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-42156162014-11-14 Resolving the abundance and air-sea fluxes of airborne microorganisms in the North Atlantic Ocean Mayol, Eva Jiménez, María A. Herndl, Gerhard J. Duarte, Carlos M. Arrieta, Jesús M. Front Microbiol Microbiology Airborne transport of microbes may play a central role in microbial dispersal, the maintenance of diversity in aquatic systems and in meteorological processes such as cloud formation. Yet, there is almost no information about the abundance and fate of microbes over the oceans, which cover >70% of the Earth's surface and are the likely source and final destination of a large fraction of airborne microbes. We measured the abundance of microbes in the lower atmosphere over a transect covering 17° of latitude in the North Atlantic Ocean and derived estimates of air-sea exchange of microorganisms from meteorological data. The estimated load of microorganisms in the atmospheric boundary layer ranged between 6 × 10(4) and 1.6 × 10(7) microbes per m(2) of ocean, indicating a very dynamic air-sea exchange with millions of microbes leaving and entering the ocean per m(2) every day. Our results show that about 10% of the microbes detected in the boundary layer were still airborne 4 days later and that they could travel up to 11,000 km before they entered the ocean again. The size of the microbial pool hovering over the North Atlantic indicates that it could play a central role in the maintenance of microbial diversity in the surface ocean and contribute significantly to atmospheric processes. Frontiers Media S.A. 2014-10-31 /pmc/articles/PMC4215616/ /pubmed/25400625 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2014.00557 Text en Copyright © 2014 Mayol, Jiménez, Herndl, Duarte and Arrieta. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Microbiology Mayol, Eva Jiménez, María A. Herndl, Gerhard J. Duarte, Carlos M. Arrieta, Jesús M. Resolving the abundance and air-sea fluxes of airborne microorganisms in the North Atlantic Ocean |
title | Resolving the abundance and air-sea fluxes of airborne microorganisms in the North Atlantic Ocean |
title_full | Resolving the abundance and air-sea fluxes of airborne microorganisms in the North Atlantic Ocean |
title_fullStr | Resolving the abundance and air-sea fluxes of airborne microorganisms in the North Atlantic Ocean |
title_full_unstemmed | Resolving the abundance and air-sea fluxes of airborne microorganisms in the North Atlantic Ocean |
title_short | Resolving the abundance and air-sea fluxes of airborne microorganisms in the North Atlantic Ocean |
title_sort | resolving the abundance and air-sea fluxes of airborne microorganisms in the north atlantic ocean |
topic | Microbiology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4215616/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25400625 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2014.00557 |
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