Approaches to Bacterial Population Dynamics

Abstract

Studies on the structure of phyto- and zooplankton communities have been numerous in aquatic ecology. They have contributed considerably to our knowledge of species composition, genetic population structure, and environmental factors regulating local, spatial, and temporal variability. However, our knowledge of the structure of the indigenous bacterial flora that participates in the flux of matter in aquatic ecosystems is scarce. This may be partly because identification of bacterial species is very laborious and often still uncertain. Today, due to the development of modern molecular (nucleic acid homology, RNA sequencing, RNA probing) and immunological techniques (genus- and species-specific fluorescent antibodies, monoclonal antibodies), solutions to these problems may be anticipated.