Growth of marine bacteria and ammonium regeneration from substrates in different C: N ratios

Natural assemblages of marine bacteria were chosen in a batch culture experiments. The impact of varying nitrogen substrate concentrations and the substrate C:N ratios (C:N_S) on the bacterial C:N ratio (C:N_B), the bacterial growth efficiency (BGE) and ammonium regeneration was mainly examined. The C:N_S ratios varied from 5:1 (carbon limitation) to 40:1 (nitrogen limitation) with varying combinations of glucose and NO₃^-. The C:N_B ratio had positive relationship with the C:N_S ratio (r=0.93, n=8), whose value was 3.77 when the C:N_S ratio was 5:1 but increased to 6.47 when the C:NS ratio was 40:1. These results indicate that the C:N_B ratio is a potential diagnostic tool for determining the bacterial growth in natural waters controlled by either, carbon or nitrogen. BGE decreased with the declining nitrate concentration and negatively related to C:N_s (r=-0.51, n=8). The average value of BGE was 0.20. This value was a little lower than other reports, which could be induced by the nitrogen source used in our experiments. Finally, regeneration time of ammonium delayed with the increasing C:N_S ratio, which indicates that there were different metabolism mechanisms when bacterial growth was limited by carbon source and nitrogen source.