Abstract
Monitoring of cyanobacteria and their toxins is traditionally conducted by cell counting, chlorophyll-a (chl-a) determination and cyanotoxin measurements, respectively. These methods are tedious, costly, time-consuming, and insensitive to rapid changes in water quality and cyanobacterial abundance. We have applied and tested an online phycocyanin (PC) fluorescence probe for rapid monitoring of cyanobacteria in the Macau Storage Reservoir (MSR) that is experiencing cyanobacterial blooms. The relationships among cyanobacterial abundance, biovolume, cylindrospermopsin concentration, and PC fluorescence were analyzed using both laboratory and in-the-field studies. The performance of the probe was compared with traditional methods, and its advantages and limitations were assessed in pure and mixed cyanobacterial cultures in the laboratory. The proposed techniques successfully estimated the species including Microcystis and Cylindrospermopsis, which were two toxic species recently observed in the MSR. During February–November, 2010, the PC probe results revealed high correlations between PC and cell numbers (R 2 = 0.71). Unlike the chl-a content, which indicated only the total algal biomass, the PC pigment specifically indicated cyanobacteria. These results supported that PC was a reliable parameter to estimate cyanobacterial cell number, especially in freshwater bodies where the phytoplankton community and structure were stable. Thus, the PC probe was potentially applicable to online monitoring of cyanobacteria.
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Acknowledgments
We thank the technical staff at Macao Water Co. Ltd. for collecting water samples, counting cyanobacterial cells, and measuring chlorophyll-a concentration. Financial support from the Fundo para o Desenvolvimento das Cieˆncias e da Tecnologia (FDCT) (grant # FDCT/016/2011/A) and the Research Committee at University of Macau is gratefully acknowledged.
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Kong, Y., Lou, I., Zhang, Y., Lou, C.U., Mok, K.M. (2017). Using an Online Phycocyanin Fluorescence Probe for Rapid Monitoring of Cyanobacteria in Macau Freshwater Reservoir. In: Lou, I., Han, B., Zhang, W. (eds) Advances in Monitoring and Modelling Algal Blooms in Freshwater Reservoirs. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0933-8_4
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