Because competitive interactions may have led to adaptations enabling bloom-forming phytoplankton to dominate pelagic communities, we explored the allelopathic effects of one red tide dinoflagellate, Karenia brevis, on competing phytoplankton species. Exposure to waterborne compounds from natural K. brevis blooms resulted in growth inhibition or death for four of five co-occurring species tested, whereas compounds exuded by K. brevis cultures suppressed three of these same competitors (the diatoms Asterionellopsis glacialis and Skeletonema costatum and the dinoflagellate Prorocentrum minimum) plus one additional species (the dinoflagellate Akashiwo cf. sanguinea) that was unaffected by bloom exudates. K. brevis exudates lowered photosynthetic efficiency and damaged cell membranes of competing phytoplankton, but had no effect on competitor esterase activity, nor did they limit competitor access to iron. Overall, during blooms, K. brevis exudes potent allelopathic compounds, competitors vary in their susceptibility to K. brevis allelopathy, and K. brevis may achieve nearly monospecific blooms by lowering the photosynthetic efficiency of competitor species and increasing competitor membrane permeability, eventually resulting in competitor growth suppression or death.

Phytoplankton exhibit a diversity of morphologies, nutritional values, and potential chemical defenses that could affect the feeding and fitness of zooplankton consumers. However, how phytoplankton traits shape plant-herbivore interactions in the marine plankton is not as well understood as for terrestrial or marine macrophytes and their grazers. The occurrence of blooms of marine dinoflagellates such as Karenia brevis suggests that, for uncertain reasons, grazers are unable to capitalize on, or control, this phytoplankton growth-making these systems appealing for testing mechanisms of grazing deterrence. Using the sympatric copepod Acartia tonsa, we conducted a mixed diet feeding experiment to test whether K. brevis is beneficial, toxic, nutritionally inadequate, or behaviorally rejected as food relative to the palatable and nutritionally adequate phytoplankter Rhodomonas lens. On diets rich in K. brevis, copepods experienced decreased survivorship and decreased egg production per female, but the percentage of eggs that hatched was unaffected. Although copepods showed a 6-17% preference for R. lens over K. brevis on some mixed diets, overall high ingestion rates eliminated the possibility that reduced copepod fitness was caused by copepods avoiding K. brevis, leaving nutritional inadequacy and toxicity as remaining hypotheses. Because egg production was dependent on the amount of R. lens consumed regardless of the amount of K. brevis eaten, there was no evidence that fitness costs were caused by K. brevis toxicity. Copepods limited to K. brevis ate 480% as much as those fed only R. lens, suggesting that copepods attempted to compensate for low food quality with increased quantity ingested. Our results indicate that K. brevis is a poor food for A. tonsa, probably due to nutritional inadequacy rather than toxicity, which could affect bloom dynamics in the Gulf of Mexico where these species cooccur.

The spatial organization of biofilms is strongly regulated by chemical cues released by settling organisms. However, the exact nature of these interactions and the repertoire of chemical cues and signals that micro-organisms produce and exude in response to the presence of competitors remain largely unexplored. Biofilms dominated by microalgae often show remarkable, yet unexplained finescale patchy variation in species composition. Because this occurs even in absence of abiotic heterogeneity, antagonistic interactions might play a key role. Here we show that a marine benthic diatom produces chemical cues that cause chloroplast bleaching, a reduced photosynthetic efficiency, growth inhibition and massive cell death in naturally co-occurring competing microalgae. Using headspace solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME)-GC-MS, we demonstrate that this diatom exudes a diverse mixture of volatile iodinated and brominated metabolites including the natural product cyanogen bromide (BrCN), which exhibits pronounced allelopathic activity. Toxin production is light-dependent with a short BrCN burst after sunrise. BrCN acts as a short-term signal, leading to daily "cleaning" events around the algae. We show that allelopathic effects are H 2 O 2 dependent and link BrCN production to haloperoxidase activity. This strategy is a highly effective means of biofilm control and may provide an explanation for the poorly understood role of volatile halocarbons from marine algae, which contribute significantly to the atmospheric halocarbon budget.allelopathy | chemical ecology | marine ecology | signal molecule

The stimulation of bacteria capable of reducing soluble U(VI) to sparingly soluble U(IV) is a promising approach for containing U(VI) plumes. Anaeromyxobacter dehalogenans is capable of mediating this activity; however, its ability to couple U(VI) reduction to growth has not been established. Monitoring the increase in 16S rRNA gene copy numbers using quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) in cultures provided with U(VI) as an electron acceptor demonstrated growth, and 7.7-8.6 x 10(6) cells were produced per mumole of U(VI) reduced. This biomass yield was lower than predicted based on the theoretical free energy changes associated with U(VI)-to-U(IV) reduction. Lower than predicted growth yields with U(VI) as electron acceptor were also determined in cultures of Geobacter lovleyi and Geobacter sulfurreducens suggesting that U(VI) reduction is inefficient or imposes an additional cost to growing cells. These findings have implications for U(VI) bioremediation because Anaeromyxobacter spp. and Geobacter spp. contribute to radionuclide immobilization in contaminated subsurface environments.

The use of chemical compounds to suppress the growth of competitors is a competitive strategy known as allelopathy that can be readily observed with many phytoplankton species in laboratory studies. However, it is unclear how these allelopathic interactions are altered when the complexity of the system is increased to more closely mimic natural conditions. In the present study, we conducted laboratory experiments to decipher how the identity, abundance, and growth stage of competitors affect the outcome of allelopathic interactions with the red tide dinoflagellate Karenia brevis. Multiple chemical compounds produced by K. brevis were found to inhibit the growth of 4 phytoplankton competitors, although these competitors were susceptible to different combinations of compounds. We found that physiological state and cell concentration of competitors were important determinants of allelopathy, with early-stage (lag phase) cells more vulnerable to allelopathic effects than later growth stages for the diatom Skeletonema grethae. Despite being allelopathic to multiple competitors in the laboratory, in a microcosm experiment using plankton field assemblages, extracellular extracts of 2 strains of K. brevis had no effects on some taxa although they stimulated the growth of some diatoms. This suggests that in a species-rich ecological community under oligotrophic conditions, the relative importance of K. brevis allelopathy may not be as high as most laboratory studies predict.