Quantitative Depth Profile of Prochlorococcus in the Pacific Ocean

Prochlorococcus is a genus of extremely abundant marine cyanobacterium. This microbe is responsible for the majority of the primary production within marine environments and is thought to be the single most abundant photosynthetic organism. In addition to accounting for such a large portion of the world’s photosynthetic activity, Prochlorococcus functions with a genome much smaller than most other primary producers. Thus due to its general abundance and overall importance in oceanic ecosystems, an experiment was prompted to derive the spatial and numerical separation of the members of this genus across the Pacific Ocean through the use of quantitative polymerase chain reaction, or QPCR. These numerical figures would be used to determine the factors acting upon the niche selection and growth parameters specific to each of the genetically different subgroups, termed ecotypes, of the Prochlorococcus genus. The ecotypes to be quantified within this experiment are abbreviated as eMIT9313, eMIT9312, eMED4, and eNATL2A. The data shows that each of these ecotypes have differing abundances in areas of the ocean as well as at various depths due to temperature, light intensity, water density, and seasonal climate/weather changes.