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Microbes stop water from blooming

22.02.2023

Excessive growth of algae is harmful to aquatic ecosystems. However, it can stop as suddenly as it started. Bacteria, which previously coexisted peacefully with plankton, begin to attack it and quickly destroy it. Scientists were able to identify the substance that triggers such an attack. Perhaps it can be used to control the flowering of reservoirs.

Single-celled algae Emiliania huxleyi live in a close community with a variety of bacteria. Usually, their relationship can be called friendly: photosynthetic algae share some of the nutrients with microbes, and at the same time supply compounds that are useful to them. For example, rhodobacteria provide vitamin B, which planktonic algae are unable to produce on their own. But in adverse circumstances, microbes easily betray their partners: as soon as there is not enough food, rhodobacteria destroy E. huxleyi.

Such fragile relationships are not uncommon in nature, they also exist in our intestines. And for aquatic ecosystems, the transition of bacteria from peace to war may even be beneficial, as it can put an end to excessive blooming of water bodies due to overgrown algae. However, when exactly and why microbes change their "mood" is still unknown. A new study by scientists from the Israeli Weizmann Institute is devoted to this issue.

During long experiments, Assaf Vardi and his colleagues exposed Sulfitobacter D7 rhodobacteria to various substances that release E. huxleyi in various circumstances - both in normal growth and in a depressed state. Microbiologists tracked the activity of different genes in response to a particular compound. The work showed that dimethyl sulfone propionate (DMSP), which algae secrete more and more as they age, pushes the bacteria into a warlike mood.

With the accumulation of DMSP, the DNA activity of microbes changed and they switched to feeding on algae. But the presence of benzoates in the environment, on the contrary, “calmed down” the microbes; bacteria can consume this substance directly. It is the balance of these compounds that apparently regulates the processes of flowering in water bodies. It is possible that in the future DMSP will help to combat this phenomenon, which causes serious damage to local ecosystems. Recall, according to one of the hypotheses, the extensive Permian extinction could be associated with the anomalous algal bloom.

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