Prokaryotic abundance and 16S rRNA gene sequences detected in marine aerosols on the East Sea (Korea)

Abstract Modern studies on marine airborne prokaryotes over open seas have been rare. Here, to understand their distribution and composition, aerosol as well as surface seawater samples were collected at three sites in the East Sea. The abundance of airborne prokaryotes was 0.7–1.2 × 105 cells m−3. Partial sequences of the 16S rRNA gene from the aerosols were dominated by Gammaproteobacteria and Bacteroidetes. Interestingly, the numbers of phylotypes of airborne bacteria were comparable to those of seawater bacteria in coastal and remote offshore sites. Over half of the bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) detected in these aerosols (12 out of 20) were of marine origin. Eight of the 19 bacterial OTUs found in the surface waters occurred in the aerosols. Thus, surface seawater seems to be a main source of marine airborne bacteria. However, in the intermediate offshore site, airborne bacterial OTUs (n=4) were all terrestrial, indicating that variations of dominant airborne bacterial phylotypes occurred over the sites (each ∼160 km apart) sampled at 1–4-day intervals. Euryarchaeota sequences belonging to the MSP8 clade reported from geographically distant regions were detected in marine aerosols. Long-distance aerial transport of the marine prokaryotes seems to be quite possible.