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Estimation of carbon biomass and community structure of planktonic bacteria in Lake Biwa using respiratory quinone analysis

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Abstract

The relationship between bacterial respiratory quinone (RQ) concentration and biomass was assessed for Lake Biwa bacterial assemblages to evaluate the utility of bacterial RQ concentration as an indicator of bacterial carbon. The biomass estimated from the RQ concentration correlated well with that from cell volume, indicating that RQ concentration is an appropriate indicator of bacterial biomass. The estimated carbon content per unit of RQ (carbon conversion factor) of bacteria was 0.67 mg C nmol RQ−1. Bacterial carbon biomass, which was estimated from the RQ concentration using the conversion factor, ranged between 0.008 and 0.054 mg C L−1 (average 0.025 mg C L−1) at 5 m depth and between 0.010 and 0.024 mg C L−1 (average 0.015 mg C L−1) at 70 m depth. Ubiquinone-8-containing bacteria dominated the epilimnion and hypolimnion. Compared to conventional image analysis, bacterial RQ analysis is a less laborious method of simultaneously determining bacterial biomass and community.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Mr. Tadatoshi Koitabashi and Dr. Yukiko Goda for their assistance during field sampling, and Dr. Naoto F. Ishikawa and Mr. Yusuke Okazaki for their assistance with sample analyses, as well as their encouragement throughout this study. We are grateful to the handling editor, Dr. Hisaya Kojima, and two anonymous reviewers whose comments greatly improved the manuscript. We also thank Drs. Masayuki Ushio, Taichi Yokokawa, Ryuji Kondo, Fereidoun Rassoulzadegan, and other colleagues at the Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University for their valuable comments on this study. This study was partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI (grant no. 23370010 to S.N.; grant nos. 21710081 and 23710010 to T.K.; grant no. 11J00658 to H.T.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Ecological Research (CER), Kyoto University, Hirano-cho 2 chome, 509-3, Otsu, Shiga, 520-2113, Japan

    Hiroyuki Takasu & Shin-ichi Nakano

  2. Center for Marine Environmental Studies (CMES), Ehime University, Bunkyo-cho 2-5, Matsuyama, Ehime, 790-8577, Japan

    Tadao Kunihiro

  3. Department of Ecosystems Studies, Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research (NIOZ), Korringaweg 7, 4401 NT, Yerseke, The Netherlands

    Tadao Kunihiro

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  1. Hiroyuki Takasu
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  2. Tadao Kunihiro
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  3. Shin-ichi Nakano
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Correspondence to Shin-ichi Nakano.

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Handling Editor: Hisaya Kojima.

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Takasu, H., Kunihiro, T. & Nakano, Si. Estimation of carbon biomass and community structure of planktonic bacteria in Lake Biwa using respiratory quinone analysis. Limnology 14, 247–256 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10201-013-0402-3

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