Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Unraveling the Unseen Players in the Ocean - A Field Guide to Water Chemistry and Marine Microbiology
Published on: November 5, 2014
Impact of environmental factors on couplings between bacterial community composition and ectoenzymatic activities in
Delphine Boucher1, Didier Debroas
1Laboratoire de Biologie des Protistes, Université Blaise Pascal, UMR CNRS 6023, Aubière, France.
Abstract:
This study examined the effects of temporal changes in bacterial community composition (BCC) and environmental factors on potential ectoenzymatic activities (alpha-glucosidase, beta-glucosidase, alkaline phosphatase and leucine aminopeptidase) in a lacustrine ecosystem (Sep reservoir, France). BCC was assessed by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism. Physical parameters, and inorganic and organic nutrient concentrations (dissolved carbohydrates and proteins) were measured in lakes and tributaries. According to the multivariate statistics (redundancy analysis), physical and chemical factors explained the largest part of leucine aminopeptidase activity, whereas the temporal changes of other ectoenzymatic activities were partly dependent on the variations in the BCC. In particular, the occurrence of occasional bacterial populations seemed to explain a lot of the variation in rates and patterns of polymer hydrolysis. The relation observed in this study between the bacterial structure and activity is discussed within the framework of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning.
Related Concept Videos
Freshwater Microbial Ecology
Marine Microbial Ecology
Introduction to Microbial Ecology
Microbial Wastewater Treatment
Microenvironments
Soil Microbial Ecology

