Assessing patterns of morphological and physiological trait variations across heterocytous cyanobacteria at cellular and population levels

YEMA, LILEN; KREMER, COLIN T.; O´FARRELL, INÉS; DE TEZANOS PINTO, PAULA

HYDROBIOLOGIA

SPRINGER

Lugar: Berlin; Año: 2018

0018-8158

Heterocytous Cyanobacteria show hightrait variation at the cellular, organismal, and populationlevels. Members of this group can producespecialized cells such as akinetes and heterocytes thatinfluence their ecology, including bloom developmentand population survival. This study characterizespatterns of variation in the traits of these species,including the traits of specialized cells, to expand ourecological knowledge and predictive capacity for thisgroup. We compiled and synthesized morphologicaland physiological traits of planktic heterocytousCyanobacteria from the published literature andexperiments, and assessed trait distributions, traitrelationships, and their similarities among species.Although the volumes of akinetes and heterocyteswere positively related to that of vegetative cells, theshape of cells differed in ways that may reflect theirfunction, and the position of heterocytes withinfilaments may relate to growth rate. Maximum growthrates differed significantly among genera, yet surprisinglydid not correlate with cell volume. Also, despitethe high energetic cost of N fixation in low Nconditions, our results suggest that growth rate seemsunrelated to nitrogen availability. The degree of traitvariation within heterocytous Cyanobacteria, whichsuggests the existence of three functionally distinctsubgroups, may offer new insights into which taxadominate bloom assemblages under differentconditions