| Popis: |
In ecology, the enumeration of living aquatic unicellular protists is a century-old complicated task. The organisms are small, perhaps motile, and if they are non-motile their vitality is hard to gauge. A respectable technique still in use today is the Serial Dilution Culture-Most Probable Number (MPN) assay that determines the total viable phytoplankton concentration from the highest sample dilutions that exhibit chlorophyll-fluorescence after incubation. However, 99% of extant phytoplankton species have not been shown to grow in MPN tubes (false-negatives) and in ballast water applications, 10-50 µm species can be outcompeted by |
