Marine Bacterial Biofilms: Shaping Surface Communities

Abstract

The assembly of marine benthic communities has become a focal point in marine ecology. We address how the bottom layers of benthic communities (i.e., the microbes inhabiting the basal biofilm) influence the complex accumulation of eukaryotes that grow on top of them. Specifically, we discuss (a) what organisms make up benthic biofilms, what brings about their attachment to surfaces, and how they vary in space and time; (b) what eukaryotic organisms are in marine benthic communities, how they vary in space and time, and the nature of microbial cues that bring about their recruitment to particular benthic sites; (c) the roles of bacterial-animal symbiosis in the composition of benthic communities; (d) what is happening to biofilms and their roles as habitat engineers in the rapidly changing world; and (e) how the geological history of bacteria and microbial mats on the ocean floor powerfully influenced the evolution of larval-bacterial interactions.

Keywords: algal spore; benthic community; biofilm; invertebrate; larva; settlement.