Survey on functionally diverse bacterial strains from marine finfishes and crustaceans

Abstract

Prokaryotic microorganisms compromise a large portion of the organic biomass of the world’s ocean and play an important role in the biogeochemical cycles and food webs of this ecosystem. Surface colonization by microorganisms is ubiquitous in marine systems with a large proportion of microbes occurring as complex communities. Despite their importance, comparatively little is known about the phylogenetic composition of this complex microbial population and the functional roles of their members. Living surfaces are ideal to explore colonization by microorganisms because eukaryotes are subject to a constant bombardment from the millions of microbial cells typically found in a millilitre of seawater.