Abstract
Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) commonly occur in the phytoplankton of lakes and reservoirs and sometimes develop as blooms which can cause deoxygenation, toxin production and nuisance odours1. The factors which govern the occurrence and seasonal development of such blooms in surface waters are imprecisely understood and little is known about the origins of the bloom-forming populations within particular water bodies (see, however, refs 2,3). Using 15N as tracer, we show here that the appearance of Microcystis in the phytoplankton of an experimental enclosure in the summer of 1977 correlated directly with the presence of particulate 15N which could only have been sediment-derived and which originated mainly from Microcystis cells deposited on the sediment surface the previous year. The most plausible explanation is that Microcystis overwinters on the sediment surface and by so doing provides an inoculum of colonies from which the epilimnetic population develops the following summer4–8. Possible mechanisms which allow the mass recruitment of Microcystis to the plankton are considered elsewhere2,3.
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Preston, T., Stewart, W. & Reynolds, C. Bloom-forming cyanobacterium Microcystis aeruginosa overwinters on sediment surface. Nature 288, 365–367 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1038/288365a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/288365a0
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