Introduction

Studying plankton organisms is critical to assess the health of ocean and freshwater ecosystems. Over the past decade, a combination of image analysis technologies and machine learning algorithms has been applied to characterize zooplankton1,2,3,4,5 and phytoplankton organisms6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13. Light microscopy is still considered the golden standard technique providing high-resolution plankton images for qualitative and quantitative assessment. However, microscopy is a time-consuming approach that requires a high level of taxonomic skills and can result in human-based misclassification and underestimation of rare species14,15,16. Moreover, microscopy identification of plankton is limited by an increased sample variability and diversity of the spatial orientation of the plankton organisms in the imaging plane, presence of organic matter particles in the water samples, and decay. There is, therefore, a high demand for automating the process of classification to enable high-throughput data processing. In the last decades imaging cytometers such as FlowCytobot6, FlowCAM5,8,12,13, and Imagestream X Mark II9 have been used to improve and speed up phytoplankton image acquisition. The FlowCAM instrument has become a valuable tool in marine and freshwater plankton studies because it enables researchers to classify, count, and monitor different plankton organisms17,18 in the preferred detection size range of 20–300 μm19. Image analysis and classification of large image datasets are primarily sensitive to high variations, manual misclassifications, and biased interpretations20. However, so far, phytoplankton analysis with imaging cytometers has mainly been limited to the genus level and not included differentiation of colonial morphospecies5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13.

Microcystis spp. is a dominant cyanobacterial genus appearing in all regions of the world. Microcystis can form toxic blooms whose occurrence is expanding; thus, more than 100 countries worldwide have documented such toxic blooms in freshwater lakes and streams21. Toxic strains of Microcystis produce hepatotoxins and neurotoxins22,23 that constitute a serious threat to human health by contaminating drinking water resources. The toxins of Microcystis spp. have harmful effects on different trophic levels in an aquatic food web, such as phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish, and mollusks24,25,26,27,28. Depending on the prevailing environmental conditions, Microcystis tend to form colonial structures covered by a thick polysaccharide sheath (mucilage)29. Colony formation by Microcystis can be induced by low temperatures, low light intensity, high lead ion concentrations, and the presence of other cyanobacterial species. According to Zheng et al.30, under laboratory conditions Microcystis spp. occur only as single or paired cells, preventing replication and study Microcystis spp. bloom formation. Morphospecies (or morphoforms) were identified in the Microcystis genus31, and their physiology, growth, and toxicity vary greatly32. Seasonal dynamics and increasing occurrence of water-bloom forming Microcystis is of great concern for the ecosystem due to the potential production of potentially toxic microcystins33, and M. aeruginosa is considered to be a major toxic morphospecies. Microcystis spp. occurs in the freshwater bodies mainly in a colonial form34, and their bloom dynamics were monitored by different research groups. Thus, in China, Microcystis blooms development and sustainment were studied in many lakes, including large Taihu and Dianchi lakes25,35,36. Thus, Otten and Paerl36 studied by genotyping the single colonies of four different morphoforms of Microcystis spp. that comprised seasonal blooms in Lake Taihu, and reported that one morphospecies was genetically unique (M. wesenbergii) and three (Microcystis aeruginosa, Microcystis flos-aquae, and Microcystis ichthyoblabe) were genetically indistinguishable (96.4% identity of 16S–23S ITS sequences). Ishikawa et al.37 examined M. aeruginosa and M. wesenbergii colonies in the Lake Biwa, Yamamoto, and Nakahara38 investigated Microcystis spp. in Hirosawa-no-ike Pond in Japan. Kurmayer and co-authors, Via-Ordorica and others studied Microcystis colonies in European freshwater bodies39,40, and Alvarez and co-authors in Uruguay41.

We used a unique LMWE mesocosm experiment (Aarhus University, Denmark)42 that, in contrast to the limited laboratory conditions, provides a dynamic system for the study of colonial phytoplankton. Previously, in 2018 we attempted classification of morphospecies in a study of the seasonal dynamics of different Microcystis spp.43. Five different Microcystis morphospecies (M. aeruginosa, M. novacekii, M. smithii, M. wesenbergii, and M. ichthyoblabe) were also detected and identified during the 2019 season. This study aimed to develop and validate a semi-quantitative machine learning algorithm for differentiation of Microcystis colonies intragenerically and from other phytoplankton colonial phytoplankton taxa (Micractinium genus) as well as from unicellular phytoplankton (Cryptomonas spp.). We distinguished five morphological colonial forms of Microcystis and found that the proposed intergeneric classification showed higher performance using minimized filter sets, whereas intrageneric differentiation had lower accuracy using high complexity filter sets. These semi-automated imaging cytometry-based classification results are comparable with the traditional human-based level of classification. We attribute the variations in intrageneric colonial analysis accuracy to the high heterogeneity of Microcystis spp. in the seasonal Microcystis bloom. Moreover, our observation that some Microcystis morphotypes completely disappeared and re-appeared along the mesocosm experiment timeline supports the hypothesis of the main transition pathways of colonial Microcystis morphoforms.

Materials and methods

Mesocosm experimental setup

We collected phytoplankton samples from the AQUACOSM Lake Mesocosm Warming Experiment (AQUACOSM LMWE experiment) in the experimental facility of Aarhus University in Central Jutland, Denmark (56°140 N, 9°310 E) to study different phytoplankton genera with a FlowCAM imaging cytometer. The mesocosm facility consists of 24 artificially mixed flow-through mesocosms that were established in August 2003. The factorial experimental set-up combines three temperature scenarios and two nutrient levels, all in four replicates (detailed description of experimental design and set-up can be found in Liboriussen et al.42). Overall, the LMWE experiment includes six different types of tanks with low and high nutrient levels that are each divided into three sub-types (depending on the temperature of the water: unheated, heated according to IPCC climate scenario A2, and eight heated according to A2 + 50%)—all with three replicates. In the present study, we collected seasonal (from May 23, 2019, to September 17, 2019) samples on 13 dates in the 12 high nutrient tanks, in a total of 168 samples. The tanks are named A1–3, D1–3, F1–3, and G1–3. A schematic representation of a mesocosm is shown in Fig. 1. The samples were preserved with glutaraldehyde solution (Sigma-Aldrich, USA) at a final concentration of 1% and analyzed using a FlowCAM imaging cytometer (Yokogawa Fluid Imaging Inc., USA).

Figure 1
figure 1

An image of one of the 24 flow-through tanks in the LMWE experiment run at the experimental facility belonging to Aarhus University, Denmark (modified from42). The collection tank was placed at right side (not included). This image was created with BioRender (https://biorender.com/).

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Instrumentation

We used a benchtop FlowCAM imaging cytometer equipped with VisualSpreadsheet software (Yokagawa Fluid Imaging, USA). Samples were recorded in autoimage mode using combinations of 10 × objective (NA = 0.3; resolution 1 pixel equals to 0.554 µm)/100 µm flow cell and/or 20 × objective/50 µm flow cell for identification, classification, and quantification. Identification and quantification of phytoplankton cells by light microscopy were performed under Leica DM500 (Leica Microsystems, Germany) equipped with phase contrast and series of objectives.

Phytoplankton morphological classification

As stated before, we elucidated semi-automated classification for morphological analysis between a genus-level and colonial morphospecies dataset. Therefore, phytoplankton classification in this study was focused on on Cryptomonas sp., Micractinium, and Microcystis morphospecies. Microcystis spp.was divided into five morphospecies, namely M. aeruginosa, M. ichthyoblabe, M. novacekii, M. smithii, and M. wesenbergii; and used this morphological difference between colonial morphospecies for intrageneric (within genus) classification. Training sets were developed with an expert taxonomist's participation (with > 10 years of experience). On the images, Cryptomonas sp. (hereafter Cryptomonas) were defined as brown-green cells with two flagella44. Examples from FlowCAM imaging are given in Fig. 2A. For Micractinium, spines/bristles were used for the identification, as illustrated in Fig. 2B. Five major morphospecies of Microcystis spp. were separated into classes of M. novacekii, M. ichthyoblabe, M. smithii, M. aeruginosa, and M. wesenbergii (see Fig. 2C–G). During a seasonal Microcystis bloom, some of the images show colony remnants with few or no cells. These images were assigned to the class “Membrane”. Small and dispersed non-colonial forms of Microcystis spp. classified as “Undefined”. The two latter classes were not used in the training sets in order to ensure clear separation between the five colonial morphospecies.

Figure 2
figure 2

FlowCAM imaging flow cytometry of phytoplankton from the LMWE 2019 experiment. (A) Cryptomonas sp.; (B) Micractinium; (C) Microcystis aeruginosa; (D) M. ichthyoblabe; (E) M. novacekii; (F) M. smithii; (G) M. wesenbergii.

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Preparation of training set and dataset

Different mesocosm samples were mixed to achieve an optimal number of representatives from all three to examine intergeneric classification between colonial forms of Microcystis, Micractinium, and single cells of Cryptomonas genera. It is important to note that Microcystis novacekii was used in the training set as the only representative of the genus Microcystis. None of the tanks were found to contain all three representatives in the high image counts. Using the preliminary abundance analysis, four samples (D1_17/09/2019, D1_22/08/2019, G3_11/06/2019, G3_17/06/2019) were mixed in equal volumes, with a final volume of 10 mL. Then, bright-field images were recorded applying FlowCAM imaging flow cytometry in autoimage mode. Each sample was passed through a 100 μm filter and then recorded with a 10 × magnification objective (we observed only a few large colonies with a light microscope in unfiltered samples and for safety reasons (to prevent clogging), the samples were filtered for use on FlowCAM). Intergeneric classification was performed manually, and the distribution of classes is given in Suppl. Table 1. In total, the dataset included 972 images.

The same procedure was conducted to acquire intrageneric data of Microcystis spp. Images were recorded from 168 Mesocosm samples, out of which 69 samples were positive for the presence of Microcystis spp. The overall dataset included 119,135 images of Microcystis spp. Excluding Sheaths and Non-colonial clusters images, there were 70,305 images of colonial Microcystis separated into five classes based on the previous section's classification. The D1_17/09/2019 sample (collected from Mesocosm tank D1 in 17/09/2019) was used for training and test datasets as it contained a high proportion of all five Microcystis morphospecies in the amount of 5068 images; the detailed data distribution can be found in Suppl. Table 1. The image recordings from D2_09/03/2019 sample (collected from Mesocosm tank D2 on 09/03/2019) was used to assess intrageneric classifiers in a different dataset with 2,552 images of colonial Microcystis.

Feature extraction and evaluation of filter sets

The imaging and cytometric data from LMWE samples were acquired using the FlowCAM instrument. To achieve an even distribution of representatives, 150 images were randomly moved from the Classification Window to Open view in the VisualSpreadsheet software. So, we used 150 representative images for each of the abundant phytoplankton species (M. aeruginosa, M. ichthyoblabe, M. novacekii, M. wesenbergii, M. smithii, Cryptomonas, and Micractinium) to train VisualSpreadsheet software to differentiate listed phytoplankton taxa. Then, 25 or 50 images were randomly selected as training data (further referred to as “25” and “50”), and the VisualSpreadsheet software generated an initial set of classification parameters specific for each species based on selected images. After auto-filtering, there were 48 image features left, which are based on five different categories: size, shape, texture, gray-scale signal, and color signal measurements.

The Filter Dialog box contained image features and their ranges between the minimum and maximum values. The filter sets were reduced by systematic selection to leave the minimal number of features until the filter set's accuracy started deviating significantly. In other words, the procedure was performed till the overall Accuracy value reached 0.75 and below, according to Eq. (1). The changes in filter sets resulted in an increase in the true positive rate with a drawback of decrease in the true negative rate. The changes in the true positive rate were recorded for each filter set, and they are compared in Suppl. Fig. 1. Shortlisted particle properties were saved in a filter format file. The value ranges were separately recorded for the selection of “25” and “50” images for training. These value ranges provide the basis for selection of particles/images in the dataset. It was decided to include the intersecting ranges between “25” and “50” to create the third type of filter set, named as “Intersection”. As this method is based on selected images, the produced classifier is equivalent to selecting more images (\(50\le\) X \(\le 75\)). It was done to remove false positive results and increase the overall accuracy of the classification. So, the highest min. value and lowest max. value were taken manually to decrease the range for each parameter.

$$Accuracy = \frac{True\; Negative\; results + True\; Positive\; results}{{Total \;\;number \;of \;results}}$$
(1)

Equation (1): Equation for Accuracy that was used to leave the most important particle properties.

The above-mentioned filter sets were saved in filter format file and used for classification and further evaluation of the test dataset that excluded images from training dataset. The results of the test classification were recorded and used to construct a confusion matrix. Finally, the performance of the classification was evaluated based on reliability (precision) and accuracy of each classifier according to the procedure adapted from Aldenhoff et al.45.

Hellinger distance (HD) was used to identify any dataset shifts between the training dataset (\(T\)) and the test dataset (\(X\)). Equation (2) was adapted from the work of Cieslak and Chawla46. The minimum value for HD is 0, which is mainly observed when datasets are identical. The “1/\(\sqrt{2}\)” was added to change the maximum value of the HD from \(\sqrt{2}\) (approximately 1.41) to 1.0.

$$Hellinger \,distance \left(X, T\right)= \frac{1}{s}\sum_{f=1}^{s}{HD}_{f}(X, T)=\frac{1}{s}\sum_{f=1}^{s}\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\sqrt{\sum_{k=1}^{c}{\left(\sqrt{\frac{{X}_{f,k}}{X}}-\sqrt{\frac{{T}_{f,k}}{T}}\right)}^{2}}$$
(2)

Equation (2): Equation for Hellinger distance between datasets X and T, where s represents the number of different filter sets used, \({HD}_{f}(X,T)\) is the Hellinger distance for a given filter set (\(f\)), \(c\) is the number of classes (bins) used in classification method, \(X\) is the total number of representative images in the dataset, and \({X}_{f,k}\) is the number of classification matches with the feature set \(f\) that belongs to the class (or bin) \(k\) (the same definitions are applied in the training dataset \(T\)).

Since we used test dataset with an uneven distribution of samples (Suppl. Table 1), the difference-based method was applied. The error for each class was identified using the equation for symmetric mean absolute percentage error (SMAPE), according to Eq. (3). This can be used as a clear indication of classification performance depending on the class47. The SMAPE analysis was performed to identify the error for each classification bin.

$$SMAPE ({c}_{i})= \frac{1}{s}\sum_{f=1}^{s}\frac{\left|{X}_{{f, c}_{i}}-{X{^{\prime}}}_{{f,c}_{i}}\right|}{{X}_{{f, c}_{i}}+{X{^{\prime}}}_{{f,c}_{i}}}$$
(3)

Equation (3): Equation for symmetric mean absolute percentage error (SMAPE) for each class, where \({X}_{{f, c}_{i}}\) is the actual value of the number of representatives for class \({c}_{i}\) using the filter set \(k\), and \({X{^{\prime}}}_{{f,c}_{i}}\) represents the forecast value.

Bray–Curtis dissimilarity (Eq. 4) and Kullback–Leibler Divergence (Eq. 5) were used as metrics of the overall performance. In both approaches, the zero value indicates that the generated forecast distribution is fully identical with the actual data. The Bray–Curtis dissimilarity determines dissimilarity between the actual data and the data predicted by filter sets using their relative abundance data47. The Kullback–Leibler Divergence uses probability distributions to perform natural measures of relative entropy46. These values were calculated to assess the performance of the intergeneric and intrageneric (Microcystis morphospecies) approaches.

$$\mathrm{Bray }-\mathrm{Curtis\, dissimilarity}=\frac{\sum_{k=1}^{c}\left|{X}_{k}-{X{^{\prime}}}_{k}\right|}{\sum_{k=1}^{c}{X}_{k}+{X{^{\prime}}}_{k}}$$
(4)

Equation (4): Equation for Bray–Curtis dissimilarity for the overall performance metric, where \({X}_{k}\) is the actual value in the bin \(k\), and \({X{^{\prime}}}_{k}\) represents the predicted value using the filter set \(k\).

$$\mathrm{Kullback}-\mathrm{Leibler \,Divergence }\left(\mathrm{X}\parallel {\mathrm{X}}^{\mathrm{^{\prime}}}\right)= \sum_{k=1}^{c}\left[\frac{{X}_{k}}{\sum_{k=1}^{c}{X}_{k}}\times \left(\mathrm{log}\frac{{X}_{k}}{\sum_{k=1}^{c}{X}_{k}}-\mathrm{log}\frac{{X{^{\prime}}}_{k}}{\sum_{k=1}^{c}{X{^{\prime}}}_{k}}\right)\right]$$
(5)

Equation (5): Equation for Kullback–Leibler Divergence, where \({X}_{k}\) is the actual value in the bin \(k\), and \({X{^{\prime}}}_{k}\) represents the predicted value using the filter set \(k\).

Results

Classification parameters for each morphological class

Classification parameters were extracted using the feature finder tool in VisualSpreadsheet software. The description and possible range for each acquired particle property are summarized in Table 1. The selected most important particle properties are listed in Table 2. The upper table (Table 2A) summarizes particle properties with corresponding value ranges for intergeneric classification between three different genera, Cryptomonas, Micractinium, and Microcystis. The lower table (Table 2B) includes the same information for intrageneric classification of the five Microcystis morphospecies. For the “25” or “50” images selected as training data, the ranges are shown as a minimum and maximum values. The “intersection” filter with narrowed value ranges is included to assess intercepting images between “25” or “50”.

Table 1 List of particle properties with corresponding type, description and possible value range.
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Table 2 Set of particle properties within each filter set for intergeneric classification (A) and intrageneric classification (B).
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Evaluation of filter sets in high-throughput data set

Generated sets of particle properties were examined on the test dataset that exhibited an uneven distribution (more detailed in Suppl. Table 1). The image collection covered only described genera-level and morphospecies-level classification. In other words, images of other species were excluded from the comparison of selected types of data.

The “Intersection” filter setting with narrowed ranges was used as the representative data. Results of semi-automated classification, “predicted” by classifiers, were compared with the manual classification data, that is considered as “True label”. The confusion matrices were constructed based on true positive results and misclassifications by calculating precision and false discovery rate, respectively (Table 3A,B). Overall performance for intergeneric and intrageneric classification in percentage is provided in Tables 3C,D, and more detailed information on the other two filter settings, when “25” and “50” images were used for training, can be found in Suppl. Tables 2 and 3.

Table 3 The results of classification using intersecting ranges for the intergeneric classification of three classes (upper row) and the intrageneric classification of five Microcystis morphospecies (lower row).
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The classification of intergeneric Cryptomonas, Micractinium, and Microcystis images was performed using only two-particle properties. Setting ranges for diameter (ABD) and intensity was enough to discriminate between one and the two other classes with an overall 96–100% performance for these classifiers. Cryptomonas has the smallest cell size (8–13 μm) of the three genera, and size was consequently used as a feature. On selected 25 images, the diameter ranges of the Micractinium and Microcystis filter sets did not intersect. However, when the training set was increased to 50, the intensity feature's inclusion became necessary to ensure accurate classification, implying combined use of the size and signal strength feature categories for the larger filter sets. The confusion matrices showed a low misclassification rate with an overall 96–100% performance for the dataset of 971 images. The differences between the three species (genera) were sufficient for the VisualSpreadsheet software to perform useful classification.

The performance of the intrageneric Microcystis spp. classification was considerably lower than for the intergeneric classification. Firstly, the filtering pipeline for classification included a wider variety of particle properties. Since the colony size of Microcystis spp. colonies varied, the basic diameter (ABD) parameter was not applied. However, the size-based parameters of perimeter and length were used for differentiation of M. aeruginosa and M. ichthyoblabe, respectively. In the training dataset, the false discovery rate was as low as 0.47. However, it was increased to 0.71 when M. aeruginosa classifier was applied to the test dataset. Additionally, Shape features were used in classifiers for M. aeruginosa, M. ichthyoblabe, and M. smithii. The initial Shape classifier had Edge gradient parameter due to a semi-transparent halo's appearance around M. aeruginosa colonies. The second shape feature was Roughness, which has increased values when bigger interior holes are present. In our prediction system, the classifier for M. smithii had a higher value range between 1.58 and 10.70 compared to Microcystis ichthyoblabe (1.38–4.16). The Roughness particle property differentiated the other two colonial morphospecies.

All other particle properties were based on Signal strength, namely Average Blue, Intensity, Ratio Red/Blue, Ratio Red/Green, and Sigma Intensity. The classifier for M. wesenbergii had a combination of Signal strength features, including Intensity, Average Blue (average value for blue color pixels), and Sigma Intensity (standard deviation of particle’s grayscale values). These features could not adequately filter out M. novacekii images, resulting in a lower accuracy and reliability values of 73.6% and 43.3%, respectively. However, these classifier features were efficient in elimination of M. aeruginosa, M. ichthyoblabe, and M. smithii images from M. wesenbergii classifier bin, which resulted in considerably low false discovery rate of 0.02–0.07. Finally, M. novacekii was identified through the single gate of Intensity feature because the small value range did not intersect with other morphospecies, and provide a relatively high precision of 98.1%.

Since the test dataset was imbalanced with an uneven distribution of representatives, balanced accuracy was calculated for each filter set application by averaging the true positive rate and true negative rate. Different validation methods were used to examine both the training dataset and the test dataset for each filter set and the summary for the calculations is given in Table 4.

Table 4 Summary of the evaluation of filter sets using balanced accuracy, Hellinger distance and SMAPE, Bray–Curtis dissimilarity, and Kullback–Leibler Divergence.
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The results show that intergeneric classifications between three different genera have lower Hellinger distance, which indicates that small data shifts can influence the performance of filter sets. The data shift value for morphospecies (intrageneric) classification was considerably higher than for the intergeneric classification, which affected their classification accuracy. However, there was no strong linear correlation between Hellinger distance and balanced accuracy, especially in the intergeneric classification.

For both the intergeneric and intrageneric approaches, the accuracy values for M. novacekii were around 91%. Other genera (Cryptomonas and Micractinium) had balanced accuracy values of 87–90%, while the other four Microcystis morphospecies has lower values of 73–78%. The SMAPE analysis exhibited an error percentage of ≤ 5.0% for the intergeneric classification, rising to 17.2% for the M. aeruginosa filter set in the morphospecies classification.

The results of the two classification approaches were evaluated by Bray–Curtis dissimilarity, and the intrageneric classification had a higher dissimilarity (0.145) than the classification between genera (0.128). The results were checked by calculating Kullback–Leibler Divergence (KLD) to compare the probability distributions of predicted data and actual data. The calculations also indicated a lower KLD value of 0.0006 for the intergeneric classification compared to the intrageneric classification value of 0.0281. In other words, the classification information lost using the method of genera classification is lower than when using the classification between morphospecies.

Dynamics of a seasonal Microcystis bloom succession in LMWE-2019 mesocosm

The results of dominant species analysis by light microscopy in the tanks containing Microcystis spp. are listed in Suppl. Table 4; and often included Micractinium spp. (detailed in Suppl. Table 4) or Cryptomonas spp. (D3, F3, G3 tanks, at different dates). The semi-automatic classification based on well-balanced training sets from Microcystis seasonal bloom provided a high level of intergeneric accuracy (96–100%) (in comparison with Micractinium spp. and Cryptomonas spp.) but relatively low intrageneric accuracy (67–78%). The percentage distribution of colonial Microcystis morphospecies in samples from the LMWE experiment in 2019 is presented in Fig. 3 below. Importantly, there was a sequential appearance of the Microcystis spp. morphotypes, and also some Microcystis morphotypes (M.aeruginosa, M.novacekii, M.smithii) completely disappeared during certain periods of time and re-appeared later Fig. 4A and B.

Figure 3
figure 3

The distribution of Microcystis morphospecies in samples from the LMWE experiment in 2019. Grouping is based on type of tank and the date when the samples were taken.

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Figure 4
figure 4

Seasonal changes of abundances of Microcystis spp. colonial morphoforms and water temperature from May to September 2019 in mesocosm tanks D1 (A) and G1 (B).

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Discussion

This study demonstrated the proof-of-concept of using a machine learning approach in the analysis of colonial morphospecies of Microcystis. The results described here are based on previous researchers' work demonstrating the application of machine learning in the identification and counting of different taxa of plankton organisms1,2,5,7,15. The current gold standard for phytoplankton taxonomy is light microscopy of algal samples; however, there is a huge interest to apply semi-automated and automated approaches for Microcystis colonial forms classification. Light microscopy's biggest disadvantages are the extensive training and time period required for a taxonomist to become a proficient expert, the high cost of training, and the large component of manual work involved. Although sequencing and the following molecular biological identification have become more popular in recent years, microscopy and visual morphological analysis remain the most important and widely available tools. In the context of saving time during taxonomic analysis, imaging cytometers constitute a faster and efficient way to receive the morphological information required for taxonomic identification5. The imaging cytometer in our study was a FlowCAM instrument used by many research groups worldwide5,8,12,19.

In recent years, automatic classification of plankton has attracted increasing attention, with the development of methods including both handcrafted features48,49,50 and deep learning architectures51,52,53,54. The former was used for semi-automatic classification by Gorsky et al.3, who applied the ZooProcess and Plankton Identifier software for feature extraction and zooplankton taxonomic characterization. The latter, being based on convolutional neural networks, used input images to extract features for several classifiers, but this was a task that required a considerably higher number of annotated images as training datasets for each class55. However, the authors found it difficult to create a well-balanced training dataset for deep learning from natural samples with both high diversity and a high abundance of plankton taxa. The images extracted from field samples often showed a natural class imbalance of phytoplankton taxa. For example, Lee et al.51 used the WHOI-Plankton database with 3 million plankton images, where > 90% of all images were annotated for only 5 different classes. In the recent study by Kerr and co-authors12, the class imbalance issue was addressed by constructing deep learning algorithms in a collaborative model to achieve the classification of under represented classes found in FlowCAM images. However, this prediction model showed poor performance in certain minority classes. If the non-target training instances heavily outnumber the target classes' training instances, the deep learning algorithms can be ineffective in determining class boundaries. Several studies demonstrate that balanced image distributions yield the best performances56,57,58. We had the advantage of observing seasonal blooms in the mesocosm samples, which helped create well-balanced training sets of Microcystis morphospecies for use in a semi-automated classification approach. In the 2019 LMWE experiment, we followed a Microcystis seasonal bloom represented by a changing ratio of colonial morphospecies at different dates (Fig. 3). This allowed us to create class-balanced training sets by choosing time points with sufficient amounts of all five Microcystis morphospecies. It is a first attempt to apply a semi-automatic algorithm for intrageneric analysis of colonial Microcystis, the majority of previous studies being focused on the analysis of colonial phytoplankton taxa at genus level10,12,53 or used for analysis training sets build with single-celled Microcystis laboratory cultures9,11.

Here, we presented an identification logic and statistical evaluation of the accuracy and reliability of the approach used for the classification of five colonial morphospecies of Microcystis available from a seasonal mesocosm experiment. To verify a machine learning approach for intergeneric classification, we also used plankton from different genera, namely, unicellular Cryptomonas and colonial Micractinium, available from the mesocosm experiment plankton samples taken during the 2019 season. Cryptomonas was represented by brown-green colored asymmetric cells with a transparent membrane on the outside and an average size of about 40 μm. It is non-toxic freshwater algae with two flagella and is usually consumed by zooplankton44. The representative from the second algal genus was the colonial green algae Micractinium, which has proteinaceous spines to prevent grazing by planktonic rotifers59. Based on microscopy analysis, both algae were dominant or co-dominant with Microcystis in LMWE-2019 tanks at many dates (Suppl. Table 4 for Micractinium and F3 tanks for Cryptomonas spp.). We developed a machine learning approach based on the simple brightfield-related morphological descriptors that demonstrated high performance at the intergeneric level of phytoplankton taxa with a training set of image samples derived from different time points of the 2019 LMWE season. Overall, the accuracy of intergeneric classification of Microcystis spp. in the mesocosm samples compared to other colonial and/or unicellular algae showed high performance of 96–100%, stressing the value of using minimized filter sets including 1–2 features. However, this semi-automated classification demonstrated 65–75% accuracy for intrageneric morphospecies within colonial Microcystis spp. This type of classification required significantly more filter descriptors (up to 5 particle properties). Nevertheless, the obtained results are comparable with those of analysis by human taxonomists, which, according to Culverhouse and co-authors14, is between 67 and 83%. It means that it is possible to evaluate the automatically significant percentage of acquired during seasonal bloom Microcystis images and save 70–80% of researcher time.

By contrast, the suggested machine learning approach using well-balanced training sets covering the whole seasonal bloom demonstrated a higher level of accuracy of up to 93% for intrageneric differentiation of Microcystis morphospecies, if a training set was created and applied to the images of the five algal forms taken as they occurred at a one-time point in the samples during the bloom. However, a set of classification parameters tends to be less optimal to a particular tank and sampling date. It has less accuracy when applied to other sample sets (detailed description is provided in Suppl. Table 5). We hypothesize that the decrease in the accuracy can be explained by a significant level of colonial phenotypic variability, i.e., high heterogeneity of toxic and non-toxic Microcystis morphospecies60,61,62 during the seasonal bloom. Microcystis heterogeneity shows up, evidenced by differences in image features patterns encountered when data sampling dates are separated by a few weeks.

The described machine learning approach was applied to produce a long-term dataset aimed to understand the colonial Microcystis development in relation to environmental factors (manuscript in preparation). The obtained data revealed a sequential seasonal disappearance/reappearance of the certain colonial Microcystis morphoforms (Figs. 3 and 4A,B). Morphological variability of Microcystis colonies induced by laboratory conditions have been described recently by different groups63,64. Similar observations of sequential changes and disappearance of certain colonial Microcystis morphologies were reported in Lake Taihu study65. Together these observations and our results obtained with machine learning analysis of colonial Microcystis are supporting the hypothesis of main transition pathways of colonial Microcystis morphoforms61. The classification of cyanobacteria strains that was done exclusively by morphological characteristics is not always sufficient61,66,67, and our observations emphasize the early formulated suggestions that previously distinct morphospecies may belong to single species68.

Colony formation of Microcystis is thought to contribute to the global success of this genus in freshwater ecosystems69,70. With an increase of environmental problems related to climate change and water scarcity71, we need to understand better the factors and mechanisms affecting Microcystis colonial forms evolution and dominance. This study provides a useful approach for quantitative analysis of Microcystis diversity.

Conclusions

The estimation of speed/type for phenotypic changes in colonial Microcystis requires a high spatial and temporal resolution, and mesocosm studies of seasonal Microcystis spp. succession together with semi-automated machine learning algorithm of colonial forms analysis may provide much more detailed and less prone to user bias analysis. Morphological analysis of phytoplankton along time and at recording seasonal changes of single species represents an important tool to study dynamics of aquatic ecosystems72,73. Our results suggest that by combining intrageneric classification with the relatively simple set of descriptors in imaging flow cytometry, we can provide an opportunity to examine the colonial morphoforms of Microcystis at a higher resolution and temporal level during seasonal bloom. Although previous studies have developed machine learning and deep learning approach to classify plankton1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12, our study is the first to differentiate colonial morphoforms of freshwater Microcystis at the intrageneric level. The accuracy of the approach is raising to experienced human taxonomists' performance level, thereby reducing the time of analysis and subjectivity. As one of the significant outcomes of this work, such results further highlights a high level of Microcystis spp. heterogeneity during a seasonal bloom and support the hypothesis of main transition pathways of colonial Microcystis morphoforms. The classification algorithm’s accuracy depends on the increased diversity of images features, which can be enriched in the future by including a variety of fluorescence-correlated morphological parameters in the filter sets. We expect that automated methods will be increasingly used in the future, allowing early detection of toxic morphospecies of colonial Microcystis and other harmful algae.