engleski

Formation and Function of the Giant Gel Network in a Marine Ecosystem

The enigmatic gel phase (mucilage) appears episodically in the northern Adriatic Sea. The phenomenon manifests itself in rapid production of enormous amounts of gelatinous matter in the water column and on the sea surface. Current views leave no doubt on phytoplankton as a proximal source of polymers constituting the gel network, but the mechanism leading to its rapid formation remains unknown. Using atomic force microscopy we address the extracellular polymer production of a marine diatom analyzed at the single cell level and supramolecular organization of native gel network as a link to the large scale phenomenon of gel formation in the Northern Adriatic. Our results support the hypothesis that extracellular polysaccharides produced by marine diatoms self-assemble to form a giant gel network, this process being independent on bacterial processing. Thereafter the giant gels function as efficient bioreactors to eliminate excess of photosynthesized material from the basin.

Adriatic sea; atomic force microscopy; giant gel network

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