Biomass partitioning of benthic microbes in a Baltic inlet: relationships between bacteria, algae, heterotrophic flagellates and ciliates

The structure of a benthic microbial food web and its seasonal changes were studied in the shallow brackish waters of the island of Hiddensee, northea stern Germany, at two sites in close proximity by monthly or bimonthly samp ling from July 1995 to June 1996. Abundance and biomass of phototrophic and non-phototrophic bacteria, heterotrophic flagellates (HF) and ciliates as well as the biomass of microphytobenthos were determined in the upper 0.3 c m sediment layer. Abundance of organisms showed strong positive correlation with water temperature, with the exception of the bacteria. Non-phototroph ic bacterial numbers ranged from 7 x 10(8) to 6.7 x 10(9) cells cm(-3) and phototrophic bacterial abundance from 4 x 10(7) to 2.7 x 10(8). Heterotroph ic protist abundance ranged from 8 x 10(3) to 104 x 10(3) ind cm(-3) for HF and from 39 to 747 ind cm(-3) for ciliates. The biomass partitioning demon strated the primary importance of non-phototrophic bacteria (min. 0.83, max . 84.87 mu g C cm(-3)), followed by the microphytobenthos (min. 1.32, max. 50.93 mu g C cm(-3)). The heterotrophic protists contributed roughly the sa me fraction to the total microbial biomass, with the biomass of the HF bein g slightly higher (HF 0.23 to 1.76 mu g C cm(-3), ciliates 0.04 to 1.17 mu g C cm(-3)). Taxonomic classification of the benthic HF revealed the euglen ids to be the most important group in terms of abundance and biomass, follo wed by thaumatomastigids and kinetoplastids. Other important groups were ap usomonads, cercomonads, pedinellids and cryptomonads, The structure of the HF assemblage showed strong seasonal changes with euglenids being the most abundant taxa in summer, while apusomonads and thaumatomastigids were predo minant in winter. Similar to the pelagic microbial food web, benthic picoph ototrophic bacteria were occasionally abundant, and the feeding modes of he terotrophic protists exhibited a great variety (predominantly omnivores, ba cterivores, herbivores or predators). Filter-feeding HF were of little impo rtance. Contrary to the pelagic environment, a top-down control on total be nthic bacterial numbers by HF seemed unlikely at the studied stations which were characterised by muddy sand.