Aims: To examine the community structure of cyanobacterial populations of the South China Sea on the surface and at depth of 80 m. Methods and Results: Direct PCR amplification of RNA polymerase (rpoC1) genes from environmental DNAs extracted from seawater, and cloning of the fragments and sequence analysis were used. A great diversity of Prochlorococcus and ynechococcus were detected at the investigation site. Genetically related Prochlorococcus were found in both layers while Synechococcus were found only on the surface. Prochlorococcus were clustered with the known high-light adapted II genotypes, and further divided into seven groups. Synechococcus could be divided into two groups, and the second group could be further subdivided into several clades. Conclusion: The dominant genotype of Prochlorococcus was high-light adapted II genotype, and Synechococcus were distributed basically on the surface. Significance and Impact of the Study: This is the first report about the cyanobacterial community structure in the South China Sea, and an important supplement to the current understanding of the relationship between genetic and ecological diversity and environments.

Aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria (AAPB) are characterized by the following hysiological and ecological features. A mother AAPB cell can unusually divide into 3 daughter cells and looks like a "Y" during the division. AAPB cells sometimes adhere together forming a free-floating population. Most of the known AAPB species are obligately aerobic. Bacteriochlorophyll a (BChl a) is the only photosynthetic pigment in AAPB, and the number of BChl a molecules in an AAPB cell is much less than that in an anaerobic phototrophic bacterial cell, while the accessorial pigments carotenoids in AAPB are abundant in concentration and diverse in species. In addition to the common magnesium containing BChl a, a zinc-containing BChla was also seen in AAPB. AAPB have light harvesting complex but usually lack light harvesting complex. Although AAPB featur in photosynthesis, their growth is not necessarily lightdependent. There is a mechanism controlling the photosynthesis approach. AAPB are widely distributed in marine environments especially in oligotrophic oceans accounting for a substantial portion of the total biomass and playing a unique role in the cycle of carbon and other biogenic elements. Besides the contribution to primary production, AAPB also have great potentials in bioremediation of polluted environments. Studies on AAPB would be of great value in understanding the evolution of photosynthesis and the structure and function of marine ecosystems.

Accurate quantification of aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria (AAPB) is of crucial importance for estimation of the role of AAPB in the carbon cycling in marine ecosystems. The normally used method "epifluo-rescence microscope-infrared photography (EFM-IRP)" is, however, subject to positive errors introduced by mis-taking cyanobacteria as AAPB due to the visibility of cyanobacteria under infrared photographic conditions for AAPB. This error could be up to 30% in the coast of the East China Sea. Such bias should be avoided by either ubtracting cyanobacteira from the total infrared counts or using a flowcytometer equipped with specific detectors for discrimination between cyanobacteria and AAPB.

Comperison of the abundances of heterotrophic bacterina in the East and Soth China Seas By stancare epifluorescence microscopy and flow cytomety revealed that pProchlorococcus was miscounted as hetertophic bacteria in DAPI stained sampies. This could result in 5-31% overstimations of heterotrophicbacterial abundance in the study areas.