Fig. 1.

(A) Sampling locations in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. (B) Relative abundance of Thalassospira sp. in bacterioplankton at the five stations as determined by genus-specific qPCR. Error bars represent 1 standard deviation. The detection limit was 0.0001%. Water samples were collected near the surface (5-m depth), at the chlorophyll maxima (positioned at 50-, 40-, 10-, 40-, and 45-m depths at stations H07, H10, H02, Ier01, and Rho02, respectively), at the salinity maximum (positioned at 300-, 300-, 350-, 100-, and 180-m depths at stations H07, H10, H02, Ier01, and Rho02, respectively), and at a depth of 1,000 m.