Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-mwx4w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-26T14:43:39.644Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The nitrogen concentration requirement of D-glucosamine for supporting effective growth of marine microalgae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

B. R. Berland
Affiliation:
Station Marine d'Endoume, Rue de la Batterie-des-Lions, 13007 Marseille, France
D. J. Bonin
Affiliation:
Station Marine d'Endoume, Rue de la Batterie-des-Lions, 13007 Marseille, France
S. Y. Maestrini
Affiliation:
Station Marine d'Endoume, Rue de la Batterie-des-Lions, 13007 Marseille, France
M. L. Lizárraga-Partida
Affiliation:
Supported by scholarship from Mexican Government (CONACYT).
N. J. Antia
Affiliation:
Pacific Environment Institute, Environment Canada, 4160 Marine Drive, West Vancouver, B.C. V7V 1N6, Canada

Extract

INTRODUCTION

A comparative survey on the capacity of several nitrogenous compounds to support marine phytoplankton growth showed urea as the best and D-glucosamine as the poorest supplier of organic-nitrogen at a concentration of 500 /g-at. N per litre (Antia et al., 1975a). The quality and degree of growth on glucosamine was always so inferior that the evidence appeared insufficient to establish whether this compound was actually being metabolized by the algae. By analogy with the substrate-utilization kinetics reported for growth of other micro-organisms such as yeast (e.g. Tseng & Wayman, 1975), the probability was considered that the glucosamine concentration used in the above survey may have been too low for adequate uptake under the test conditions chosen and that elevated concentrations, in facilitating such uptake, may provide unequivocal evidence of algal capacity for metabolism and utilization of this substrate. However, such concentration elevation would require to be below levels that may become inhibitory to growth, and these inhibitory levels may themselves vary from one species to another. Antia & Chorney (1968) reported 5 mM glucosamine to be toxic to growth of the cryptomonad Hemiselmis virescens, whereas McLachlan & Craigie (1966) observed growth of the diatoms Cyclotella cryptica and Thalassiosira fluviatilis on five times this level of concentration.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Antia, N. J., Berland, B. R., Bonin, D. J. & Maestrini, S. Y., 1975 a. Comparative evaluation of certain organic and inorganic sources of nitrogen for phototrophic growth of marine microalgae. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 55, 519539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antia, N. J., Bisalputra, T., Cheng, J. Y. & Kalley, J. P., 1975 b. Pigment and cytological evidence for reclassification of Nannochloris oculata and Monallantus salina in the Eustigmatophyceae. Journal of Phycology, 11, 339—343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antia, N. J. & Chorney, V., 1968. Nature of the nitrogen compounds supporting phototrophic growth of the marine cryptomonad Hemiselmis virescens. Journal of Protozoology, 15, 198201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antia, N. J & Lee, C. Y. 1964. The determination of ‘free’ amino sugars in seawater. Limnology and Oceanography, 9, 261262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodge, J. D., 1973. The Fine Structure of Algal Cells, xii, 261 pp. London and New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Green, J. C, 1975. The fine-structure and taxonomy of the haptophycean flagellate Pavlova lutheri (Droop) comb.nov. (=Monochrysis lutheri Droop). Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 55, 785793.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayward, J., 1965. Studies on the growth of Phaeodactylum tricornutum (Bohlin) I. The effect of certain organic nitrogenous substances on growth. Physiologia plantarum, 18, 201207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kapp, R., Stevens, S. E. Jr, & Fox, J. L., 1975. A survey of available nitrogen sources for the growth of the blue-green alga, Agmenellum quadruplicatum. Archives of Microbiology, 104, 135138.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mclachlan, J., 1964. Some Considerations of the Growth of marine algae in artificial media. Canadian Journal of Microbiology, 10, 769782.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mclachlan, J. & Craigie, J. S., 1966. Chitan fibres in Cyclotella cryptica and growth of C. cryptica and Thalassiosira fluviatilis. In Some Contemporary Studies in Marine Science (ed. H. Barnes), pp. 511517. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Neilson, A. H. & Lewin, R. A., 1974. The uptake and utilization of organic carbon by algae: an essay in comparative biochemistry. Phycologia, 13, 227264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parke, M. & Dixon, P. S., 1968. Check-list of British marine algae - second revision. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom, 48, 783832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reimann, B. E. F., Lewin, J. M. C. & Guillard, R. R. L., 1963. Cyclotella cryptica, a new brackish-water diatom species. Phycologia, 3, 7584.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tseng, M. M.-C. & Wayman, M., 1975. Kinetics of yeast growth: inhibition-threshold substrate concentrations. Canadian Journal of Microbiology, 21, 9941003.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed