0000000000942504
AUTHOR
C. Rigaud
The second life of terrestrial and plastic carbon as nutritionally valuable food for aquatic consumers
Primary production is the basis for energy and biomolecule flow in food webs. Nutritional importance of terrestrial and plastic carbon via mixotrophic algae to upper trophic level is poorly studied. We explored this question by analysing the contribution of osmo- and phagomixotrophic species in boreal lakes and used 13C-labelled materials and compound-specific isotopes to determine biochemical fate of carbon backbone of leaves, lignin–hemicellulose and polystyrene at four-trophic level experiment. Microbes prepared similar amounts of amino acids from leaves and lignin, but four times more membrane lipids from lignin than leaves, and much less from polystyrene. Mixotrophic algae (Cryptomonas…
Phytoplankton group identification with chemotaxonomic biomarkers: In combination they do better
Chemotaxonomic biomarkers are needed to monitor and evaluate the nutritional quality of phytoplankton communities. The biomolecules produced by different phytoplankton species do not always follow genetic phylogeny. Therefore, we analyzed fatty acids, sterols, and carotenoids from 57 freshwater phytoplankton strains to evaluate the usability of these biomolecules as chemotaxonomic biomarkers. We found 29 fatty acids, 34 sterols, and 26 carotenoids in our samples. The strains were grouped into cryptomonads, cyanobacteria, diatoms, dinoflagellates, golden algae, green algae, and raphidophytes, and the phytoplankton group explained 61%, 54%, and 89% of the variability of fatty acids, sterols, …