Authors: Carlos Pinheiro Joana Azevedo Alexandre Campos Susana Loureiro Vítor Vasconcelos
Publish Date: 2012/11/07
Volume: 705, Issue: 1, Pages: 27-42
Abstract
Cyanobacterial toxins have been regarded by some researchers as allelopathic substances that could modulate the growth of competitors Nevertheless often the concentrations of toxins used are too high to be considered ecologically relevant In this work we tested the hypothesis that microcystinLR MCLR and cylindrospermopsin CYN at ecologically relevant concentrations have no allelopathic effects on some species of phytoplankton Extracts containing the toxins as well as pure MCLR and CYN toxins were used to assess their effects on the growth rates of Nannochloropsis sp Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and Chlorella vulgaris Cyanobacterial crude extracts induced more pronounced effects on growth rates than pure toxins Microcystis aeruginosa and Aphanizomenon ovalisporum crude extracts containing MCLR and CYN at 0025–25 mg l−1 stimulated growth rates of microalgae whereas A ovalisporum crude extracts containing 25 mg l−1 of CYN strongly inhibited growth rates of microalgae after 4 and 7 days of exposure MCLR and CYN at environmentally occurring concentrations were unable to affect negatively the growth of microalgae and therefore these molecules may play roles other than allelopathy in natural ecosystems
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