146
ROBINA B. SCHOLES AND J. M. SHEWAN
now housed along with the National Collection of Industrial Bacteria.
The establishment of the Culture Collection was deemed essential,
because not only was it difficult to identify with any certainty isolate8
from the marine environment using the determinative keys available,
but also, of equal importance, very few of the marine bacteria described
in the literature or the keys existed in any type culture collection or
were otherwise available.
As a result of the taxonomic studies a t Torry Research Station,
a tentative scheme for the speedy identification of the Gram-negative
rods, which account for the major percentage of the isolates from our
environment has been devised and is given in Fig. 3. The method or its
modification allows for the speedy identification of about 90 to 96% of
the many thousands of isolatcs examined down to the generic level.
Further identification to the species level is a much more intractable
problem, in which the statistical approach (see Sneath, 1962; Sokal
and Sneath, 1963 ; Liston et a,?., 1963) is likely to lead to some worthwhile results. Some of these problems are already being considered by
various sub-committees, set up under the aegis of the International
Committee on Bacterial Taxonomy and Nomenclature.
C . Speciee composition of marine heterotrophs
The most comprehensive study of the species composition of the
heterotrophs in the World Oaean has been that made by Kriss and his
co-workers (Kriss, 1963 ; Mishustina et at., 1962). As already stated,
these have been classified according to the Krassilnikov Key (1959),
which, until a freer exchange of cultures between Russian workers and
their Western counterparts becomes a reality, remains largely untranslatable into terms of the Bergey’s or Prbvot’s manuals. It is
obvious, however, from the descriptions given by Kriss that most of
his isolates are Gram-negative asporogenous rods which probably
would be classified by workers using Bergey’s manual aa Peeudom o w , Achromobacter, and Fhvobacterium-Cytophclga spp. Many
Gram-positive Micrococcus and Sarcina spp. and a few mycobacteria,
actinomycetes and yeasts were also encountered. An interesting
feature of the microorganisms isolated by Kriss was that the biochemical
activity of the heterotrophs from the equatorial-tropical zone of the
World Ocean, in terms of proteolytic activity, carbohydrate breakdown, utilization of mineral nitrogen and so on, was much less than
those from the higher latitudes (Kriss et aE., 1962), and these authors
suggest that the currents driving the equatorial waters to the north and
south carry organic matter with them which is decomposed in the
higher latitudes. The liberated biogenic substances are then carried fo
ROBINA B. SCHOLES AND J. M. SHEWAN
now housed along with the National Collection of Industrial Bacteria.
The establishment of the Culture Collection was deemed essential,
because not only was it difficult to identify with any certainty isolate8
from the marine environment using the determinative keys available,
but also, of equal importance, very few of the marine bacteria described
in the literature or the keys existed in any type culture collection or
were otherwise available.
As a result of the taxonomic studies a t Torry Research Station,
a tentative scheme for the speedy identification of the Gram-negative
rods, which account for the major percentage of the isolates from our
environment has been devised and is given in Fig. 3. The method or its
modification allows for the speedy identification of about 90 to 96% of
the many thousands of isolatcs examined down to the generic level.
Further identification to the species level is a much more intractable
problem, in which the statistical approach (see Sneath, 1962; Sokal
and Sneath, 1963 ; Liston et a,?., 1963) is likely to lead to some worthwhile results. Some of these problems are already being considered by
various sub-committees, set up under the aegis of the International
Committee on Bacterial Taxonomy and Nomenclature.
C . Speciee composition of marine heterotrophs
The most comprehensive study of the species composition of the
heterotrophs in the World Oaean has been that made by Kriss and his
co-workers (Kriss, 1963 ; Mishustina et at., 1962). As already stated,
these have been classified according to the Krassilnikov Key (1959),
which, until a freer exchange of cultures between Russian workers and
their Western counterparts becomes a reality, remains largely untranslatable into terms of the Bergey’s or Prbvot’s manuals. It is
obvious, however, from the descriptions given by Kriss that most of
his isolates are Gram-negative asporogenous rods which probably
would be classified by workers using Bergey’s manual aa Peeudom o w , Achromobacter, and Fhvobacterium-Cytophclga spp. Many
Gram-positive Micrococcus and Sarcina spp. and a few mycobacteria,
actinomycetes and yeasts were also encountered. An interesting
feature of the microorganisms isolated by Kriss was that the biochemical
activity of the heterotrophs from the equatorial-tropical zone of the
World Ocean, in terms of proteolytic activity, carbohydrate breakdown, utilization of mineral nitrogen and so on, was much less than
those from the higher latitudes (Kriss et aE., 1962), and these authors
suggest that the currents driving the equatorial waters to the north and
south carry organic matter with them which is decomposed in the
higher latitudes. The liberated biogenic substances are then carried fo