himegs
Fri, 19th Sep 2008, 01:49 AM
Here's a short excerpt and a link to an interesting article about cyanobacteria. The article was originally released in March, but I saw some new references in the last few days. Tricky stuff cyano. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080311131851.htm
Grossman's team investigated photosynthesis in a marine Synechococcus, a form of photosynthetic bacteria called cyanobacteria (formerly blue-green algae). These single-celled organisms dominate phytoplankton populations over much of the world's oceans and are important contributors to global primary productivity. Grossman and his colleagues wanted to understand how Synechococcus could thrive in the iron-poor waters that cover large areas of the ocean, since certain activities of normal photosynthesis require high levels of iron. While others had suggested a potential role of oxygen as accepting electrons from the photosynthetic apparatus in place of carbon dioxide, the studies by Grossman's group show that this activity is significant in the oligotrophic (nutrient-poor) oceans, which cover about half the ocean's area.
"It seems that Synechococcus in the oligotrophic oceans has solved the iron problem, at least in part, by short-circuiting the standard photosynthetic process," says Grossman. "Much of the time this organism bypasses stages in photosynthesis that require the most iron. As it turns out, these are also the stages in which carbon dioxide is taken from the atmosphere."
"We realized very quickly that there was something different about the Synechococcus that we were studying" says Shaun Bailey, the lead postdoctoral fellow working on this project. "The uptake of carbon dioxide and the photosynthetic activities didn't match, so we knew that something other than carbon dioxide was being consumed by photosynthesis, and it turned out to be oxygen."
Grossman's team investigated photosynthesis in a marine Synechococcus, a form of photosynthetic bacteria called cyanobacteria (formerly blue-green algae). These single-celled organisms dominate phytoplankton populations over much of the world's oceans and are important contributors to global primary productivity. Grossman and his colleagues wanted to understand how Synechococcus could thrive in the iron-poor waters that cover large areas of the ocean, since certain activities of normal photosynthesis require high levels of iron. While others had suggested a potential role of oxygen as accepting electrons from the photosynthetic apparatus in place of carbon dioxide, the studies by Grossman's group show that this activity is significant in the oligotrophic (nutrient-poor) oceans, which cover about half the ocean's area.
"It seems that Synechococcus in the oligotrophic oceans has solved the iron problem, at least in part, by short-circuiting the standard photosynthetic process," says Grossman. "Much of the time this organism bypasses stages in photosynthesis that require the most iron. As it turns out, these are also the stages in which carbon dioxide is taken from the atmosphere."
"We realized very quickly that there was something different about the Synechococcus that we were studying" says Shaun Bailey, the lead postdoctoral fellow working on this project. "The uptake of carbon dioxide and the photosynthetic activities didn't match, so we knew that something other than carbon dioxide was being consumed by photosynthesis, and it turned out to be oxygen."