Survey of Prokaryotic Marine Plankton

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Although prokaryotes are ubiquitous and immensely important biologically, the diversity of marine communities is almost unknown. A major obstacle is poor culturability required for standard identification. This proposed project will survey planktonic prokaryotes in several ocean locations, with the objective of classifying them by means of 16S rRNA gene sequences obtained direct from biomass. This approach has provided an extremely broad phylogenetic framework of classification, and is the only one that can now be used without culturing the organisms. The results are in the form of sequences, interpreted via phylogenetic analysis. Previously, the Principal Investigator and others have applied this approach to a few open ocean samples, and major new taxa have already been discovered (e.g. an archaebacterial group whose nearest known relatives are as evolutionarily distant as animals are from plants). It is likely that other novel major taxa, as well as additional members of better-characterized ones, are awaiting discovery. The proposed project will extend these studies to deep sea, coastal, polar, and coral reef habitats that have not previously been examined this way. The Principal Investigator has already collected most of the samples, and funds will be used for work- up and analysis. The results can be used in preliminary tests of hypotheses in ecology, biogeography, and phylogeny, but primarily will serve as a framework for future such studies.