The distribution of DNA among bacterioplankton and bacterial isolates was determined by flow cytometry of DAPI (4,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole)-stained organisms. Conditions were optimized to minimize error from nonspecific staining, AT bias, DNA packing, changes in ionic strength, and differences in cell permeability. The sensitivity was sufficient to characterize the small 1-to 2-Mb-genome organisms in freshwater and seawater, as well as low-DNA cells ("dims"). The dims could be formed from laboratory cultivars; their apparent DNA content was 0.1 Mb and similar to that of many particles in seawater. Preservation with formaldehyde stabilized samples until analysis. Further permeabilization with Triton X-100 facilitated the penetration of stain into stain-resistant lithotrophs. The amount of DNA per cell determined by flow cytometry agreed with mean values obtained from spectrophotometric analyses of cultures. Correction for the DNA AT bias of the stain was made for bacterial isolates with known G؉C contents. The number of chromosome copies per cell was determined with pure cultures, which allowed growth rate analyses based on cell cycle theory. The chromosome ratio was empirically related to the rate of growth, and the rate of growth was related to nutrient concentration through specific affinity theory to obtain a probe for nutrient kinetics. The chromosome size of a Marinobacter arcticus isolate was determined to be 3.0 Mb by this method. In a typical seawater sample the distribution of bacterial DNA revealed two major populations based on DNA content that were not necessarily similar to populations determined by using other stains or protocols. A mean value of 2.5 fg of DNA cell ؊1 was obtained for a typical seawater sample, and 90% of the population contained more than 1.1 fg of DNA cellAquatic heterotrophic bacterioplankton, which are too small for observation by light microscopy, are commonly visualized with fluorescent DNA stains (14). The intensity of stain fluorescence as determined by flow cytometry, together with light scatter data, can help characterize natural populations (10,11,43,70), determine rates of growth (16), locate DNA-deficient organisms (49), provide a cell mass basis for comparative and absolute descriptions of organism affinity for nutrients (5), and identify low-mass particles (49) as bacteria in order to quantify a major component of aquatic living carbon (9).The mean DNA content of bacterioplankton has been estimated from analysis of filter-retained material and an organism count together with the number of organisms observed (17) and from analysis of images of individual cells (36), but mean values (17, 44) vary more than expected. In early studies, flow cytometry was used to observe differences among cells in monocultures of commonly grown large-cell species (60). Fluorescence from DAPI (4Ј,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole)-bound DNA was responsible for locating predominant very small oligobacteria (28). DAPI has been used to estimate the genome sizes of Synechococcus (3) and oligobacter...