Summary Plasmid carriage is associated with energetic costs, and thus only those plasmids providing fitness benefits are stably maintained in the host lineage. Marine bacteria of the Roseobacter clade harbor up to 11 extrachromosomal replicons, adding lifestyle‐relevant and possibly habitat success‐promoting functions to their genomic repertoire. Phaeobacter inhibens DSM 17395 is a nutritionally versatile representative, carry...

Rapid and inexpensive sorting of bacterial isolates may be achieved using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT‐IR), a method that has hitherto been applied to identification and classification. The comprehensive characterization of environmental samples requires the isolation of large numbers of isolates using different growth media and growth conditions. In such cases, sorting the isolates is critical before isolates a...