Metal to phosphorus stoichiometries for freshwater phytoplankton in three Scottish lakes
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecotoxicology, Environmental Sciences, Freshwater Biology
- Keywords
- metal, phytoplankton, phosphorus, freshwater, lakes, stoichiometries, scotland
- Copyright
- © 2014 Gormley-Gallagher 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. Metal to phosphorus stoichiometries for freshwater phytoplankton in three Scottish lakes. PeerJ PrePrints 2:e602v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.602v1
Abstract
Simultaneous measurements of changes in phytoplankton biomass and the metal and phosphorus (P) content of cells have been captured to attest metal to P stoichiometries for freshwater phytoplankton. Three remote Scottish lakes that have received high, medium or low metal contamination from the atmosphere were selected for study. Phytoplankton cells were collected, their biomass determined microscopically, and Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry was used to measure their lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), mercury (Hg), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr), manganese (Mn), cobalt (Co) and P content. A greater phytoplankton biomass in the lakes resulted in significant algae growth dilution of the mass-specific Pb, Cd, Hg, Cu, Ni and Cr in the phytoplankton. Changes in the phytoplankton cell count and their Hg, Pb, Cd, Cu, Mn, Co, Ni and Cr concentrations showed the process of algae bloom dilution to be subject to exponential decay, which accelerated in the order of Mn < Cu < Ni < Pb and Cd < Cr and Hg < Co. This indicated a metabolic and detoxification mechanism was involved in the active selection of metals. For the first time simultaneous measurements of metals and P stoichiometry in freshwater phytoplankton are reported. The mean metal to P stoichiometry generated was (C106P1N16)1000Pb0.019Hg0.00004Cu0.013Cd0.005Cr0.2Co0.0008 Mn0.2Ni0.012 based on the field measurements and the Redfield average C, N and P stoichiometry of (CH2O)106(NH3)16H3PO4.
Author Comment
This submission is intended as a research article.