Preserving the marine environment
Anthropogenic activities have been considered to have a critical impact on the marine environment, yet its microbiotic systems can play an important role in its preservation. A better understanding of these microorganisms is expected to contribute to the preservation of marine ecosystems. Moreover, this microworld constitutes a significant source of natural organisms with a potential for further development of new compounds for other uses e.g. pharmaceuticals. Urged by this, the MIRACLE project extensively explored the microbial biodiversity in marine communities. The study involved a collection of cultures of novel microbial groups, measurement of their functional origin and use of molecular identity indicators for further analysis. Thereby, a group of phototrophic microorganisms has been isolated and obtained as pure cultures from the North and the Baltic Seas. The isolated strains were deposited in the Culture Collection Yerseke (CCY). The CCY includes mostly unique strains, 300 cyanobacteria, 150 diatoms and 50 other algae. These strains are available as bacteriologically pure cultures and at least two strains have been genetically characterised in detail. Culture conditions and medium composition have been optimised with the aid of suitable protocols developed for cryo-preservation of the cultures. The strains are available to the public upon request.
