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Divergent responses of diverse microalgae commonly found in drinking water source water to UV-C treatment

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Abstract

Microalgae pose major problems for drinking water treatment processes either through membrane fouling or through blooming events in source water during the summer months. Disinfection treatments such as chlorination and UV-C treatment of drinking water are designed to remove microorganisms including microalgae and bacteria. In order to treat water efficiently it is critical to understand the effect of UV-C treatment on the viability and vitality of phytoplankton. Moreover, this information can be used to assess the utility of UV-C treatment as a potential pre-treatment option for water clean-up. In this study we tested the population growth of 6 phytoplankton species representing three major taxonomic groups (green algae, diatoms and cyanobacteria), commonly found in freshwater lakes in North America and relevant for water treatment facilities. We exposed these species to UV-C treatment and monitored their post-exposure population growth over a 52–55-day period using a plate-based MPN (most probable number) method. We found the green alga Scenedesmus quadricauda and the cyanobacterium Anabaena flos-aquae to be most tolerant to the treatment, while the cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa and the diatom Asterionella formosa were found to be most sensitive with viability being reduced at comparatively lower doses. No significant delays in growth post treatment (i.e. time lags) were reported within species. Asterionella formosa and Aulacoseira granulata showed the longest time lags of all species, which might be in part correlated with DNA repair mechanisms and other physiological adaptations. This work provides the basis for the assessment of UV-C treatment efficacy on freshwater phytoplankton.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to start by thanking the University of Guelph and the Department of Integrative Biology for the space and materials to conduct the research. We would like to acknowledge Trojan Technologies Ltd. for allowing us to use their UV equipment. We would also like to thank Dr. Josef Ackerman and Dr. Paul Sibley for their feedback and support during this project. We would also like to thank Dr. George Harauz and Dr. Vladimir Bamm for the use of the POLARstar Omega microplate reader to monitor microalgal growth.

Funding

The research in this study was funded by NSERC CRD grants to Andreas Heyland (Grant numbers [501331] and [053535]).

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  1. University of Guelph, 50 Stone Rd. East, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2 W1, Canada

    Jordan Roszell, Kathleen Nolan & Andreas Heyland

  2. Trojan Technologies Ltd., 3020 Gore Rd, London, Ontario, N5V 4 T7, Canada

    Po-Shun Chan, Brian Petri & Ted Mao

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  1. Jordan Roszell
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Contributions

JR and AH designed and executed the experiments, performed the analysis and wrote the manuscript. Feedback on experimental design and data analysis was provided by PSC, BP and TM. KN assisted with algal cultures and monitoring of experiments.

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Correspondence to Andreas Heyland.

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Research presented in this manuscript was in part funded by Trojan Technologies through an NSERC CRD project grant.

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Roszell, J., Chan, PS., Petri, B. et al. Divergent responses of diverse microalgae commonly found in drinking water source water to UV-C treatment. J Appl Phycol 33, 1541–1557 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10811-021-02404-4

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