Triclosan causes toxic effects to algae in marine biofilms, but does not inhibit the metabolic activity of marine biofilm bacteria
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecology, Marine Biology, Microbiology, Toxicology
- Keywords
- Algae, Periphyton, Triclosan, Microbial biofilms, Bacteria
- Copyright
- © 2014 Johansson et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2014. Triclosan causes toxic effects to algae in marine biofilms, but does not inhibit the metabolic activity of marine biofilm bacteria. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e371v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.371v1
Abstract
Effects of the antimicrobial agent triclosan to natural periphyton communities (biofilms, comprising primarily microalgae and bacteria) were assessed in two independent experiments during spring and summer. For that purpose a semi-static test system was used in which periphyton was exposed to a concentration range of 5 – 9 054 nmol/L triclosan. Effects on algae were analyzed as content and composition of photosynthetic pigments. The corresponding EC50 values were 39.25 and 302.45 nmol/L for the spring and summer experiment respectively. Effects on periphytic bacteria were assessed as effects on carbon utilization patterns, using Biolog Ecoplates. No inhibition of either total carbon utilization or functional diversity was observed, indicating a pronounced triclosan tolerance of the marine bacteria. In contrast, a small stimulation of the total carbon utilization was observed at triclosan concentrations exceeding 100 nmol/L.
Author Comment
Manuscript submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.