Chlorobium Chlorophyll as an Indicator of Organic Pollution in a Paleolimnological Investigation

Abstract

Summary:The object of the investigation was the strongly polluted Dlugie Lake, Poland. Due to the development of the city of Olsztyn, for many years untreated municipal wastes were discharged into the lake. I n the core of bottom sediments the occurrence of bacteriochlorophyll a pheophytin ( Fig. 1) and Chlorobium chlorophylls and their degradation products ( Fig. 2 and 3) were observed, which suggested the presence of photosynthetic bacteria from the family Chlorobiaceae COPELAND. The development of the Chlorobiaceae population was caused by the increase of organic pollution as an effect of the urbanization process of the city of Olsztyn. It was shown that Chlorobium chlorophylls can be used as indicators of organic pollution in paleolimnological investigation.

Paleoecological reconstruction of changes in the productivity of a small, meromictic lake in Southern Ontario, Canada

“…The family Chlorobiaceae comprises all phototrophic bacteria with green or yellowish-green pigment, which develop in environments exposed to light and containing rather high concentration of hydrogen sulfide (Fjerdingstad, 1979) . Hence, the development of bacteria of the genus Chlorobium is possible in very specific environmental conditions which occur in meromictic or hypertrophic lakes (Rybak, 1986(Rybak, , 1987. In addition to the green sulphur bacteria, a few forms of Chromatium (a purple sulphur bacterium) were note at the chemocline of Crawford Lake (Severn, 1981 ;Dickman, 1985) .…”