U. Passow et Al. Alldredge, DISTRIBUTION, SIZE AND BACTERIAL-COLONIZATION OF TRANSPARENT EXOPOLYMER PARTICLES (TEP) IN THE OCEAN, Marine ecology. Progress series, 113(1-2), 1994, pp. 185-198
The distribution, abundance, and size spectra of transparent exopolyme
r particles (TEP) generated from excretion products of phytoplankton w
ere investigated. TEP was found at all stations studied, but abundance
and total quantity of TEP varied by 4 orders of magnitude among coast
al, slope and oceanic environments. Abundance and size distributions o
f TEP appeared to be related to plankton composition. Abundance tended
to be higher in coastal and shallow waters compared to oceanic and de
ep waters respectively. The average size of TEP was appreciably larger
at stations where diatoms dominated phytoplankton. Size distributions
of TEP generally followed a power-law function, except when aggregati
on dominated interaction of particles. The type of size distribution o
f TEP may allow us to predict the tendency of a plankton community to
aggregate. General differences in the shape of size spectra of TEP ind
icate TEP generated by diatoms to be stickier and more fractal compare
d to TEP generated by non-diatom plankton. All TEP were colonized by b
acteria, but no correlation was found between numbers of attached bact
eria on individual TEP and the respective size of TEP. Bacteria densit
y on TEP, however, decreased with increasing size of TEP exponentially
. Between 2 and 25% of the total bacterial population were attached to
TEP. Total number of bacteria were not correlated with total quantity
of TEP, suggesting that no simple overall relationship exists between
TEP and bacteria.