Isolation and Maintenance Methods for Skeletonema costatum in Laboratory Cultures

Abstract

Skeletonema costatum is an important species that frequently cause microalgal blooms in the Black Sea waters especially during spring. This study was aimed to use different techniques to isolate the species from their natural habitat. The first stage was the identification of the period when the species was dominant in the samples collected from the Mamaia station. Then the sea water sample was filtered (through a 60 µm multi-layer filter) to remove most of the phytoplankton and zooplankton species present in the sample. Successive dilutions followed until only the species of interest remained in the culture. The next stage was to observe Skeletonema costatum growth rate under laboratory conditions and to maintain the culture viable for future experiments. These experiments will imply the response of the species to a controlled variation of some important physico-chemical parameters, which may trigger some limitations in their development.