Articles of Significant Interest Selected from This Issue by the Editors

摘要

Bernbom et al. (p. 68856893) found that pigmented pseudoalteromonads that in monoculture studies had antifouling effects served as initial bacterial attractants in natural seawater mesocosms but had a slight repelling effect during extended incubation. Pseudoalteromona piscicida biofilms remained on steel surfaces in natural seawater systems and retained an antifouling effect, whereas P. tunicata rapidly disappeared from the preformed biofilm. Both of these pseudoalteromonads had a slight antifouling effect when embedded in paint. The study demonstrates that no single laboratory assay can predict antifouling effects and that a combination of laboratory and real-life methods must be used to determine the potential antifouling capability of new agents or organisms.Competition for ammonia among marine microorganisms is intense because ammonia is generally at extremely low (nanomolar-range) concentrations in the open ocean. However, the generally high numbers of ammonia-oxidizing archaea in these same environments indicate that they are not limited by these ammonia concentrations. Using a simple dialysis bag system, Nakagawa and Stahl (p. 69116916) demonstrated that transcriptional activities of an archaeal ammonia oxidizer at nanomolar concentrations of ammonia were consistent with recent environmental metatranscriptomic analyses, including an oxygen minimum zone of the ocean, a deep-sea hydrothermal plume, and an estuarine bacterioplankton assemblage.