Abstract
Extracellular release of photosynthetic products by a pelagic blue-green alga,Trichodesmium thiebautii, was scrutinized in relation to pre-treatments in14C-method for measuring the primary productivity.
The extracellular release increased markedly by the pre-treatments with such strong fixative solutions as formaldehyde and mercuric chloride. In such a case, the amount of extracellular fraction reached even almost 78 % of the total photosynthates. The extracellular release of photosynthates was dependent both on light intensity and on physiological state of algal cells. When photosynthesis was terminated by a fixative, the extracellular release was noticed even just after the fixation, and it increased with time. Thus, it appears to be difficult to deduce the real photosynthetic production capacity from the amount of cellular fraction only.
The amount of extracellular fraction for unfixed samples filtered immediately after the incubation was less than 8 % of the total photosynthetic products inT. thiebautii. This value is nearly comparable to the amount of excretion reported in many cultured algae.
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Shimura, S., Yamaguchi, Y., Aruga, Y. et al. Extracellular release of photosynthetic products by a pelagic blue-green alga,Trichodesmium thiebautii . Journal of the Oceanographical Society of Japan 34, 181–188 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02108631
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02108631