Author: Kaisa  Kraft,   (Finnish Environment Institute)

Designation: 

Description:
Cyanobacteria form harmful blooms with potentially deleterious effects on recreational use, human and animal health, as well as ecosystem functioning. Despite extensive research, open questions still remain concerning the factors driving the bloom dynamics. Emerging high-frequency imaging-in-flow cytometry applications, such as Imaging FlowCytobot (IFCB), provide community composition information at frequencies impossible to attain using conventional monitoring methods. These applications open novel possibilities to investigate and to further our understanding of the phenomena. We present the first results of utilizing the IFCB to follow a Baltic Sea cyanobacteria bloom community using a continuous flow-through setup. We have identified the advantages and disadvantages of the IFCB in identifying the filamentous cyanobacterial taxa and of the biovolume estimation applied. To compare the IFCB with conventional monitoring methods, filamentous cyanobacteria were enumerated from water samples using light microscopical analysis. We demonstrate that the cyanobacteria biomass estimated with the IFCB is reliable, and that the method is well suited for investigating the dynamics of Aphanizomenon flosaquae, Dolichospermum spp. and Oscillatoriales. We further demonstrate how using a high-frequency imaging-in-flow cytometry application can help understand the development of cyanobacteria summer blooms when coupled with concurrent changes in the environment. The study takes steps towards operational automated monitoring of cyanobacteria blooms.

Category: Scientific Program Abstract > Special Sessions > SS28 Aquatic microbial community structure and dynamics: new insights from non-destructive high throughput automated single-cell analysis.