Microflora of a subalpine lake: Bacterial populations, size and DNA distributions, and their dependence on phosphate

In Lake Zurich, a deep subalpine mesotrophic lake, phosphate was low or limiting at 0.2 to 1 mu M relative to combined nitrogen at 50 mu M. Heterotrophic bacteria were responsible for 53% of the observed microbial wet biomass in our depth profile while phytoplankton, largely Planktothrix (Oscillatoria) rubescens, contributed most of the remainder. Most cell carbon was contributed by this carbon-sufficient cyanobacterium. A material balance indicated that most of the phosphate was sequestered by the bacteria due to a higher phosphate content and specific affinity for this nutrient. Size distributions of the heterotrophic bacteria were narrow; 90% of organisms were from 0.06 to 0.66 mu m(3) in volume. Several subpopulations of bacteria were resolved by flow cytometry, and bivariate fluorescence (DAPI-DNA) and light scatter (cell-size) histogram profiles varied with depth. One or two of these subpopulations appeared to be bacteria with sufficient cytoplasmic constituents to produce a normal light-scatter signal but retained only a small amount of DNA; an apparent content of 200 kbp or 5% of a usual oligobacterial genome. These helped increase the oligobacterial population to 6 X 10(6) ml(-1). Application of published specific affinities and measured nutrient concentrations to formulations of system kinetics led to the conclusion that growth rates of the heterotrophic bacterial fraction were carbon limited with cell size, and thus populations were controlled by grazing. The depth profile indicated that phototrophs affected phosphate concentrations in a significant way. Considerations of nutrient uptake kinetics suggested that much potential capacity remained in the dissolved phosphate pool to support additional phytoplanktonic biomass. Computations led to the conclusion that, if phosphate is generally limiting in lakes, then additional mechanisms exist which limit populations of phytoplankton to sufficiently small values to allow phosphate accumulation to observed levels. Bacterial biomass then depends on the organic carbon from these phosphate-controlled organisms.