2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Study on chlorophyll catabolites as new proxies understanding the ecology of algivorous protists in the ocean
| Project/Area Number |
15H05607
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
Ecology/Environment
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| Research Institution | Fukui University of Technology |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
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| Keywords | Divinylchlorophylls / cyclopheophorbide enol / picocyanobacteria / Prochlorococcus / protists / algivore / primary production |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
It is known that picocynobacteria Prochlorococcus spp. are highly dominant in the low to mid latitudal oligotrophic ocean; yet, importantly, because they are conspicuously minute coccoids down to < 0.6 μm in diameter, a classical paradigm on the marine food web is unlikely to be applied where phytoplankton would have to be grazed by multicellular filter-feeders. In the present study, I hypothesized that the direct consumers of those picoplanktons should be phagotrophic protists that thus supplies energy derived from the photosynthesis of those minute producers to larger organisms. We tested this hypothesis by particularly paying attention to catabolites of divinylchlorophylls, unique photosynthetic pigments of Prochlorococcus, that are expected to be generated by the predatory process of picocyanobacteria-feeding protists.
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| Free Research Field |
Microbiology
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