Carbon-14 labelling patterns of individual marine phytoplankton from natural populations

✍ Scribed by R. B. Rivkin

• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1985
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 882 KB
• Volume: 89
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0025-3162
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00392884

✦ Synopsis

Photosynthate incorporation into lipids, low molecular weight compounds, polysaccharides and proteins by individual phytoplankton species isolated from natural populations is described. This sensitive method uses serial solvent extraction and liquid scintillation counting and gives results identical to those obtained from filtering large numbers of cells from suspension. The time course of incorporation of 14C into these polymers for algae isolated from estuarine and coastal populations shows (i) considerable differences in the carbon metabolism among species, (ii) the pattern of incorporation by any individual species may not reflect that of the phytoplankton community and (iii) significant reallocation of cell carbon among carbon pools and net protein synthesis at night. This technique permits the in-situ carbon metabolism of individual species to be examined.

Literature cited

Banse, K.: Rates of growth, respiration and photosynthesis of unicellular algae as related to cell size -a review. J. Phycol. 12,