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Bacteria in intertidal sediments: Factors related to their distribution 1
Author(s) -
Dale Norman G.
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
limnology and oceanography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.7
H-Index - 197
eISSN - 1939-5590
pISSN - 0024-3590
DOI - 10.4319/lo.1974.19.3.0509
Subject(s) - intertidal zone , meiobenthos , sediment , bacteria , grain size , total organic carbon , bacterivore , biology , acridine orange , environmental chemistry , ecology , mineralogy , chemistry , geology , staining , paleontology , genetics , geomorphology
Direct counts of bacteria from intertidal deposits support previous suggestions of a strong relationship between bacterial numbers and sediment properties. Bacteria were counted after acridine orange staining. Numbers ranged from 1.17 × 10 8 to 9.97 × 10 9 g −1 of dry sediment and were highly correlated with grain size and other granulometric properties. Sediment organic carbon and total nitrogen were correlated with bacterial numbers beyond what would be expected from the relationships of these properties to grain size; yet grain size alone accounts for over 80% of the variance in bacterial numbers. Bacterial biomass to a depth of 10 cm varied from 5.5 to 26.8 g m −2 , in the same range as previously reported for meiofauna and mixed macrofauna in sediments.