Abstract
The variation of the rate of silicate uptake with varying silicate concentration in the medium was investigated in short-term experiments with the following marine diatom species:Skeletonema costatum, Thalassiosira pseudonana, T. decipiens, Ditylum brightwellii, andLicmophora sp. The uptake conformed to Michaelis-Menten kinetics only after a correction had been made for reactive silicate that apparently could not be utilized by the diatoms. The magnitude of this correction was in the range of 0.3 to 1.3 μg-at Si/l. Mean values of the half-saturation constant of silicate uptake were calculated for the different species. The lowest value was found inS. costatum (0.80 μg-at Si/l) and the highest inT. decipiens (3.37 μg-at Si/l). Growth limitation by low silicate concentrations could be a cause of species succession in marine plankton-diatom blooms.
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Communicated by B. Swedmark, Fiskebäckskil
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Paasche, E. Silicon and the ecology of marine plankton diatoms. II. Silicate-uptake kinetics in five diatom species. Mar. Biol. 19, 262–269 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02097147
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02097147