Allelopathic Effects of Cyanobacterial Filtrates on Baltic Diatom

Abstract

Abstract Allelopathy may be one of the factors affecting the formation of massive and harmful algal blooms in aquatic environments. Recent studies indicate that blooms of cyanobacteria in the Baltic Sea has grown significantly in last decades, so it is important to determine the allelopathic interactions between the dominant species of cyanobacteria and microalgae. In this work we investigated the influence of allelopathic compounds on the growth of Skeletonema marinoi by addition of cell-free filtrate of the Baltic cyanobacterium Nodularia spumigena cultures grown under different temperature (15-25°C). Additionally the effects of filtrates of both an exponential and a stationary growing culture of N. spumigena were tested on diatom. These studies indicate that high temperature affected the donor species by increasing its production of allelochemicals. The highest drop of growth of analyzed diatom were observed after the addition of cell-free filtrate obtained from N. spumigena grown at 25°C and constituted 70% of their control. N. spumigena was only allelopathic in exponential growth phase, whereas the cyanobacteria filtrate from stationary phase have any effect on S. marinoi. These findings suggest that N. spumigena may reveal allelopathic activity and that the production of allelopathic substances is influenced by the temperature and growth phase of cyanobacteria.