Sensitivity, Distribution, Characterization and Production of Ultramicrobacteria

异养细菌循环碳，调节溶解的有机物，并构成海洋的大部分生物量。典型的生物是耐培养的，而且比通常研究的细菌的DNA小20倍，DNA的十分之一。为了研究这些营养稀少的超微细菌，巴顿博士开发了几项新技术。一种是高分辨率流式细胞术，它可以快速准确地分析海水中的种群及其衍生的培养物，包括测量种群、细胞大小和每个细胞的DNA含量。另一种是亚努斯动力学，它以分子组成为基础来确定营养物质的传输速率，并改进了对整个细胞收集营养物质能力的描述。第三种是稀释法，它极大地增加了可培养的寡营养细菌种类。看似典型的海洋细菌的代表们现在已经到场了。初步数据表明，个别生物体的生长依赖于其他生物体的存在，表现出特殊的敏感性。巴顿博士将探索这些特殊的种群依赖、细菌和拥有它们的生物体的分布、它们的营养需求、动力学特征和获得高种群密度的能力，以努力了解在溶解有机物动态控制的背景下海洋微生物的动力学和生态学。

Heterotrophic bacteria recycle carbon, regulate dissolve organics, and comprise much of the biomass of the oceans. Typical organisms are culture resistant, and a factor of 20 smaller with one-tenth the DNA of commonly studied bacteria. To study these oligotrophic ultramicrobacteria, Dr. Button has developed several new techniques. One is high resolution flow cytometry which gives a rapid accurate analysis of populations in seawater and cultures derived from them, including measurements of population, cell size and DNA content per cell. Another is janusian kinetics which bases nutrient transport rates on molecular composition and allows improved descriptions of the ability of whole cells to collect nutrients. Third is a dilution- culture procedure which greatly expands the number of oligotrophic bacterial species that can be cultured. Representatives of what appear to be typical marine bacteria are now on hand. Preliminary data indicate peculiar sensitivity exhibited as a growth-dependency of individual organisms on the presence of others. Dr. Button will to explore these peculiar population dependencies, bacteria and the distributions of organisms that have them, their nutritional requirements, kinetic characteristics, and ability to attain high population densities, in an effort to understand the dynamics and ecology of marine microorganisms in the context of kinetic control of dissolved organics.