engleski

Formation and function of giant gel network in marine ecosystem

The mechanism of marine gel formation, its stability and the role of gel state in marine ecosystem is becoming a most challenging exercise in converging disciplines of marine chemistry, microbiology and biophysics. The enigmatic gel phase appears episodically in the northern Adriatic Sea. The phenomenon manifests itself in rapid production of enormous amounts of gelatinous matter in the water column and on the sea surface. Current views leave no doubt on phytoplankton as a proximal source of polymers constituting the gel network, but the mechanism leading to its rapid formation remains unknown. Our biophysical scenario of gel formation features self-organization of biopolymers into marine vesicles that transform to giant-gel by the first order phase transition. We introduced electrochemical sensing of marine vesicles and AFM to image supramolecular organization of native gel network. Gel structure exhibits a repeating network of solvent cavities (150-500 nm) between entangled rigid fibrils with 0.6-3 nm in diameter. The giant gels function as efficient bioreactors to eliminate excess of photosynthesized material from the basin and restore normal populations in the microbial community.

marine gel nanostructure; formation mechanism; northern Adriatic Sea

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