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Seasonal variations in the morphology of bloom-forming cyanobacteria in a eutrophic pond

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Abstract

Seasonal variations in the cell volume, number of cells in a colony and trichome length of nine bloom-forming cyanobacteria species were investigated in a small eutrophic pond from May to November 2005. The main genera of cyanobacteria were Microcystis and Anabaena, which formed a dense bloom from July to August. M. aeruginosa, M. viridis and M. wesenbergii were present throughout the study period. M. viridis dominated the Microcystis population (39.2–67.1% of total biovolume) during the pre-blooming period, but M. aeruginosa and M. wesenbergii dominated after July. M. aeruginosa was the dominant species from July to November, constituting 49.0–93.2% of the Microcystis population. Each Microcystis species could always be identified from the cell volume and the number of cells in a colony. The numbers of cells in colonies of M. aeruginosa, M. viridis and M. wesenbergii were in the ranges 37–444, 28–143 and 50–264, respectively. The Anabaena population consisted of three species—A. crassa, A. flos-aquae and A. reniformis. A. crassa and A. flos-aquae were typically present at higher densities than A. reniformis. These species also showed distinctive cell volumes. The number of cells in colonies of A. crassa, A. flos-aquae and A. reniformis were in the ranges 19–178, 18–113 and 29–143, respectively. Planktothrix raciborskii and Raphidiopsis mediterranea appeared in August and Aphanizomenon flos-aquae increased from late October, although these species were less abundant. Cell volumes of Microcystis and Anabaena and trichome length of P. raciborskii were positively correlated with water temperature. Small colonies of Microcystis and Anabaena remained small during the bloom period. In contrast, the trichome length of P. raciborskii seemed to depend more strongly on growth conditions.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. H. Tsukada for providing the environmental data on Hirosawa-no-ike Pond in 2003 and 2004. We would like to thank L. Chen for her suggestions in revising the earlier version of the manuscript. T. Knoy is appreciated for his editorial assistance. Thanks to Dr. M. Morris for editing the English. We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. This research complies with the current laws of Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Applied Biosciences, Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University, Kyoto, 606-8502, Japan

    Yoshimasa Yamamoto & Hiroyuki Nakahara

  2. Research Center for Environmental Changes, Academia Sinica, 128, Sec. 2, Academia Rd., Taipei, 11529, Taiwan

    Yoshimasa Yamamoto

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  1. Yoshimasa Yamamoto
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  2. Hiroyuki Nakahara
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Correspondence to Yoshimasa Yamamoto.

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Yamamoto, Y., Nakahara, H. Seasonal variations in the morphology of bloom-forming cyanobacteria in a eutrophic pond. Limnology 10, 185–193 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10201-009-0270-z

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