Protein content and protein synthesis rates of planktonic marine bacteria

Abstract

Bacterial carbon production is an important parameter in understanding the flows of carbon and energy in aquatic ecosystems, but has been difficult to measure. Present methods are based on measuring the rate of cell production, and thus require a knowledge of cellular carbon content of the growing bacteria to convert cell production into carbon production. The authors have examined the possibility that protein synthesis rate of pelagic bacteria might serve as the basis for directly estimating bacterial carbon production. They measured bacterial protein content and protein production of pelagic bacteria. Bacterial protein production method was an order of magnitude more sensitive and yielded bacterial carbon production directly without the need to know the cell size of the part of the assemblage in growth state.