Diurnal Fluctuations of Saprophytic Bacterial distribution and Their Extracellular Enzyme Activities in the Overlying Waters of Sediment of the Yellow Sea near Daesan, Korea

대산인근 해역에서 간만조에 따른 종속영양세균의 일일 분포와 세포외 효소 활성력의 변화

As a part of studying the function and structure of the mudflat environment of the Yellow Sea, seawater samples in the overlying waters of sediment near Daesan were collected every hour on March 29 (spring tides) and on April 5 (neap tides), 1995 to study the diurnal distribution of aerobic saprophytic bacteria and their extracellular enzyme activities. The diurnal distribution of aerobic saprophytic bacteria ranged from 1.0 X $10^{2}$ to 7.07 X $10^{3}$ cfu /ml at spring tides and from 1.0 X $10^{2}$ to 8.3 X $10^{3}$ cfu /ml at neap tides. The diurnal variations of aerobic saprophytes at the suface waters were greater than those of middle and bottom waters. However, th diurnal fluctuation of saprophyte numbers at spring tides showed no significant difference compared with that at neap tides. The numbers of three physiological groups of aerobic hacteria (proteolytic, lipolytic and amylolytic bacteria) at the surface waters during spring and neap tides were lower than those at the middles and bottom waters. The diurnal variations of five extracellular enzyme activities at the surface waters during the survey period showed lower values than those at the middle and botton waters. Among the measured extracellular enzyme activities, phosphatase showed the highest. However, the activities of amylase, chitinase and cellulase showed a similar tendency.