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Lipid content in 19 brackish and marine microalgae: influence of growth phase, salinity and temperature

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Abstract

Algal lipids provide essential fatty acids for higher trophic levels in the marine food web, and understanding the fatty acid composition in phytoplankton is critical for evaluating its value as a diet. Nineteen microalgal species, mainly originating from the Baltic Sea, covering major algal classes were grown in different growth conditions. Samples were taken during both the exponential and stationary growth phases and analysed regarding their fatty acid methyl esters and free fatty acids. Our results show that across all screened species, total fatty acids increased significantly from exponential to stationary growth phase. Furthermore, it was observed that warm-water species contained more lipids and differed in their lipid profile as compared with the cold-water species. Brackish water species also showed a slightly higher lipid content than the marine species, but their lipid profile was not significantly different. Plotting changes in lipids against changes in cell nitrogen revealed a significant dependency between decrease in cell nitrogen and increase in lipids across all tested species.

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Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the Academy of Finland Research Programme “Sustainable energy—SusEn” and the Nordic Energy Research Programme “N-INNER” and MAREX-Exploring Marine Resources for Bioactive Compounds: From Discovery to Sustainable Production and Industrial Applications (Call FP7-KBBE-2009-3, Project nr. 245137). We would like to thank Anke Kremp, Kaarina Sivonen and Seija and Guy Hällfors for providing cultures and Tuulikki Seppänen-Laakso for the development of the lipid extraction and analysing method and helpful discussion about it. The excellent technical assistance of Airi Hyrkäs and Jaana Rikkinen and by the staff of the Tvärminne Zoological Station is gratefully acknowledged. Furthermore, we acknowledge the reviewers for very helpful comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Tietotie 2, 02044, Espoo, Finland

    Dagmar Schwenk, Kirsi-Marja Oksman-Caldentey & Heiko Rischer

  2. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, P.O. Box 106, 20521, Turku, Finland

    Arho Virkki

  3. Marine Research Centre, Finnish Environment Institute, P.O. Box 140, 00251, Helsinki, Finland

    Jukka Seppälä, Kristian Spilling & Timo Tamminen

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  1. Dagmar Schwenk
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Correspondence to Heiko Rischer.

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Schwenk, D., Seppälä, J., Spilling, K. et al. Lipid content in 19 brackish and marine microalgae: influence of growth phase, salinity and temperature. Aquat Ecol 47, 415–424 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10452-013-9454-z

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