Summary In July of 2006 and January of 2008, a total of 671 marine sediment samples were collected at depths from 5 to 2012 m throughout the Fijian islands and selectively processed for the cultivation of marine actinomycetes belonging to the genus Salinispora . The primary objectives were to assess the diversity, distribution and phylogeny of ‘ S. pacifica ’, the least well studied of the three species in the genus. Employing...

Summary Community structures of active bacterial populations were investigated along a vertical redox profile in coastal Baltic Sea sediments by terminal‐restriction fragment length polymorphism (T‐RFLP) and clone library analysis. According to correspondence analysis of T‐RFLP results and sequencing of cloned 16S rRNA genes, the microbial community structures at three redox depths (179, −64 and −337 mV) differed significantly...

Summary Nearly half the seabed of the Baltic Proper is incapable of supporting life of higher organisms as a consequence of oxygen depletion resulting from eutrophication. However, these areas are actually teeming with microbial life. Here we used terminal‐restriction fragment length polymorphism (T‐RFLP) to investigate the dominant archaeal and bacterial groups, with respect to community structure, in surface layers of bottom...