DeLong E F, Wu K Y, Prézelin B B, Jovine R V
Biology Department, University of California, Santa Barbara 93106.
Nature. 1994 Oct 20;371(6499):695-7. doi: 10.1038/371695a0.
Archaea (archaebacteria) constitute one of the three major evolutionary lineages of life on Earth. Previously these prokaryotes were thought to predominate in only a few unusual and disparate niches, characterized by hypersaline, extremely hot, or strictly anoxic conditions. Recently, novel (uncultivated) phylotypes of Archaea have been detected in coastal and subsurface marine waters, but their abundance, distribution, physiology and ecology remain largely undescribed. Here we report exceptionally high archaeal abundance in frigid marine surface waters of Antarctica. Pelagic Archaea constituted up to 34% of the prokaryotic biomass in coastal Antarctic surface waters, and they were also abundant in a variety of other cold, pelagic marine environments. Because they can make up a significant fraction of picoplankton biomass in the vast habitats encompassed by cold and deep marine waters, these pelagic Archaea represent an unexpectedly abundant component of the Earth's biota.
古菌（古细菌）构成了地球上生命的三大主要进化谱系之一。以前，这些原核生物被认为仅在少数不寻常且不同的生态位中占主导地位，其特征为高盐、极热或严格缺氧的条件。最近，在沿海和海洋次表层水域中检测到了新型（未培养的）古菌系统发育型，但它们的丰度、分布、生理学和生态学在很大程度上仍未得到描述。在此，我们报告了南极寒冷海洋表层水域中古菌的丰度异常高。在南极沿海表层水域中，浮游古菌占原核生物生物量的比例高达34%，并且它们在各种其他寒冷的浮游海洋环境中也很丰富。由于在寒冷和深层海洋水域所涵盖的广阔栖息地中，它们可占微微型浮游生物生物量的很大一部分，因此这些浮游古菌代表了地球生物群中一个出乎意料的丰富组成部分。
