Coastal waters are among the most productive and biogeochemically active systems on Earth, and provide important ecosystem services in terms of biological productivity and the assimilation of terrestrial inputs.
In coastal waters, bacteria drive the cycling of organic matter and thereby play a key role in the productivity and stability of coastal ecosystems. Bacterioplankton communities were followed for over a year in order to capture the seasonal variability in their processing rates, and to examine how environment and community composition influence their function. In general, the results indicate that the bacterial communities in Danish coastal waters are highly influenced by the nitrogenous components of the dissolved organic matter in the water.
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