Survey of Marine Prokaryotes

虽然原核生物在许多生物过程中无处不在并且非常重要，但对自然发生的海洋种群的多样性知之甚少。 其原因包括普遍缺乏可识别的形态差异，标准鉴定所需的可培养性困难，以及正确分类的问题。 该项目将调查不同海洋生境中的海洋浮游原核生物，包括大堡礁沉积物、加州海带床、海洋悬浮颗粒和澳大利亚的珊瑚礁。 所有的工作都将通过16S rRNA基因序列对这些微生物进行分类，以前的研究已经确定了新的主要古菌群，门或类级细菌群和其他原核生物。 新的序列将与代表原核生物主要谱系的现有序列的大型数据库进行比较。

Although prokaryotes are ubiquitous and immensely important in numerous biological processes, the diversity of naturally-occurring marine populations is poorly known. The reasons for this include a general lack of recognizable morphological differences, difficulties in culturability required for standard identification, and questions about proper classification. This project will survey marine planktonic prokaryotes in diverse ocean habitats, including Great Barrier Reef sediments, California kelp beds, marine suspended particles, and a coral reef in Australia. All of the work will classify these microbes by means of 16S rRna gene sequences, where previous study has identified new major groups of archaea, phylum or class-level bacterial groups, and other prokaryotes. New sequences will be compared against a large database of existing sequences representing major lineages of prokaryotes.