Department of General Ecology and Limnology, Zoological Institute, University of Cologne, Germany.
Biofouling. 2009 Nov;25(8):769-78. doi: 10.1080/08927010903174581.
Biofilm-dwelling consumer communities play an important role in the matter flux of many aquatic ecosystems. Due to their poor accessibility, little is as yet known about the regulation of natural biofilms. Here, a new type of flow cell is presented which facilitates both experimental manipulation and live observation of natural, pre-grown biofilms. These flow cells were used to study the dynamics of mature ciliate biofilms in response to supplementation of planktonic bacteria. The results suggest that enhanced ciliate productivity could be quickly transferred to micrometazoans (ciliate grazers), making the effects on the standing stock of the ciliates detectable only for a short time. Likewise, no effect on ciliates appeared when micrometazoan consumers were ab initio abundant. This indicates the importance of 'top-down' control of natural ciliate biofilms. The flow cells used here offer great potential for experimentally testing such control mechanisms within naturally cultivated biofilms.
生物膜栖息的消费者群落在许多水生生态系统的物质通量中发挥着重要作用。由于它们难以接近，目前对于自然生物膜的调控机制还知之甚少。在这里，我们提出了一种新型的流动池，它可以方便地对天然的、预先生长的生物膜进行实验操作和实时观察。我们利用这些流动池研究了成熟纤毛虫生物膜对浮游细菌补充的响应动力学。结果表明，纤毛虫生产力的增强可以迅速传递给后生动物（纤毛虫捕食者），使得纤毛虫生物量的变化在短时间内即可被检测到。同样，当后生动物消费者一开始就丰富时，对纤毛虫也没有影响。这表明“自上而下”控制自然纤毛虫生物膜的重要性。这里使用的流动池为在自然培养的生物膜中实验测试这种控制机制提供了很大的潜力。
