Abstract:
Microcystis bloom has caused many environmental problems, and its mechanism of bloom-formation and adaptation has been noticed wildly. To examine the possible information transfer by chemicals between both algae, the effect of
Ochromonas and its culture media filtrate on the growth and physiological traits of
Microcystis aeruginosa was investigated in this study. The results indicated that the cell density in
Microcystis decreased significantly, while the cell density in
Ochromonas increased markedly when
Microcystis and
Ochromonas were co-cultured at three initial cell density (1﹕4, 1﹕1 and 4﹕1). Moreover, the culture media filtrate of
Ochromonas sp. could inhibit the growth, and resulted in an increase of malondialdehyde (MDA) content and catalase (CAT) activity. Additionally, the content of extracellular polysaccharides (EPS) increased markedly in
Microcystis when it was inoculated into the culture media filtrate of
Ochromonas sp. These results indicated that
Ochromonas not only could prey on
Microcystis, but also might release some of the chemicals to inhibit the growth and physiological parameters of
Microcystis. This suggested that
Ochromonas might be used to inhibit the early proliferation of algae as a potential control of algae blooms.