Mucilage Problem in the Sea of Marmara
Bacteriological Approaches in Mucilage Formation: The Case of the Sea of Marmara
Gülşen Altuğ, Pelin Saliha Çiftçi TüretkenStudies conducted in different marine areas have researched the mucilage observed in different geographies in the world, and the formation mechanisms of mucilage have been associated with physical, chemical, and biological causes until the present day. However, the causes of mucilage formation in the seas and its relationship with variable environmental factors are still being researched nowadays and discussed in light of different scientific data. Understanding how bacteria respond to stressful environmental conditions, such as mucilage formation in the stress process brought on by variables related to global climate change, is crucial to understanding how marine ecosystems function. Bacteria play a significant role in the cycles of marine ecosystems and the decomposition of organic matter. Therefore, it is important to consider mucilage together with bacterial mechanisms and association studies with bacterial enzyme mechanisms in understanding mucilage formation. Presenting human-induced pollution inputs as a common component of mucilage formation worldwide also constitutes the starting point of mucilage-bacteria relations. In this study, with the comparative data obtained on the variability of microbial mechanisms depending on environmental factors, bacterial processes, which are important components of ecosystem cycles, have been defined in mucilage formation in the seas. The data on the indicator and pathogenic bacteria, heterotrophic abundance, bacterial composition, bacterial metabolic activity, dissolved carbohydrates, responses of bacterial isolates to substrates, and catabolic reactions in the Sea of Marmara, which has various diffuse and point pollution sources, were compared with the results of the bacteriological studies we conducted on the mucilage observed in the Sea of Marmara in 2008, 2010, and 2021. Depending on this definition, mucilage formation was associated with a decrease in the number of bacteria with catabolic activity suitable for decomposing organic matter in the environment. As a result, attention was drawn to environmentally friendly biological solutions to be developed according to bacterial enzyme responses for the prevention of mucilage by defining bacterial relationships in the formation of mucilage in the Sea of Marmara.