Influence of Temperature, Oxygen, and pH on a Metalimnetic Population of Oscillatoria rubescens

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Planktonic Oscillatoria spp. often inhabit depths of thermally stratified lakes in which gradients of physical and chemical factors occur. Measurements of photosynthetic rate or photosynthetic carbon metabolism were used to evaluate the importance of vertical gradients of temperature, oxygen, and pH upon Oscillatoria rubescens in Crooked Lake, Ind. At the low light intensities experienced in situ, neither photosynthetic rate nor relative incorporation of carbon dioxide into low-molecular-weight compounds, polysaccharide, or protein was affected by temperature. At a 10-fold-higher light intensity, the photosynthetic rate increased as temperature increased; most of the additional carbon accumulated as polysaccharide. Polysaccharide which was synthesized at high light intensity and temperature was respired when the organisms were placed in the dark, but was not used for protein biosynthesis. When O. rubescens was shifted from high light to low light, a fraction of the polysaccharide was metabolized into protein. Adaptation to growth at lower temperatures by O. rubescens cultures resulted in a decrease in the maximum photosynthetic rate. Oxygen inhibited photosynthesis by only 10 to 15% at concentrations typically found in the lake. The photosynthetic rates at pH values which occurred in Crooked Lake were all near the maximum. Thus, gradients of temperature, oxygen, or pH are not likely to significantly affect the distribution of O. rubescens in Crooked Lake, given the low light intensity at which O. rubescens grows and the range of values for those factors in the lake.

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