Impact of Aerosol Addition on Seawater Bacterial Communities

This project explores the response of microbial communities to atmospheric aerosol inputs. Natural surface seawater (sampling depth: 5 m) was incubated with and without aerosol addition (1.5 mg/L) in 1-L sterile containers at in situ temperature. Due to sample volume and aerosol availability constraints, two biological replicates were conducted. In each case, seawater from the replicate incubation bottles was filtered onto a single membrane filter for DNA extraction and 16S rRNA gene sequencing.