Growth, photosynthesis and antioxidant responses of two microalgal species, Chlorella vulgaris and Selenastrum capricornutum, to nonylphenol stress

The effect of nonylphenol (NP) on growth, photochemistry and biochemistry of two green microalgae, Chlorella vulgaris and Selenanstrum capricornutum, and their ability to degrade NP were compared. The 96 h EC₅₀ of C. vulgaris and S. capricornutum were greater than 4.0 and 1.0 mg L⁻¹ NP, respectively, suggesting that the former species was more tolerant to NP. Both microalgae acclimated to NP stress through down-regulating their photosynthetic activities, including antenna size (chlorophyll a content), maximal photochemistry (Fv/Fm) and the light absorbed by PSII (ABS/CS₀), but the dissipation of energy from reaction centres (DI₀/RC) increased with the increase of NP concentrations. In C. vulgaris, the changes of these parameters were more significant than in S. capricornutum and recovered completely after a 96 h exposure. The antioxidant responses, such as GSH content, CAT and POD activities in C. vulgaris increased with the increase of NP concentrations after a 24 h exposure, but these changes disappeared with exposure time and recovered to the control levels after 96 h. In S. capricornutum, although GSH content, CAT and POD activities also increased when exposed to low- to moderate-NP concentrations, these values were significantly reduced at a high concentration (4 mg L⁻¹) even after a 96 h exposure, indicating its antioxidant responses were significantly delayed. It is clear that the more NP-tolerant species, C. vulgaris, acclimated better with a faster recovery of its photosynthetic activity from the NP-induced damage, and exhibited more efficient and rapid responses to NP-induced oxidative stress. C. vulgaris also had a higher NP degradation ability than S. capricornutum.     

Effects of vegetation type on soil microbial community structure and catabolic diversity assessed by polyphasic methods in North China

Soil microbes play a major role in ecological processes and are closely associated with the aboveground plant community.In order to understand the effects of vegetation type on the characteristics of soil microbial communities,the soil microbial communities were assessed by plate counts,phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) and Biolog microplate techniques in five plant communities,i.e.,soybean field (SF),artificial turf (AT),artificial shrub (AS),natural shrub (NS),and maize field (MF) in Jinan,Shandong Province,North China.The results showed that plant diversity had little discernible effect on microbial biomass but a positive impact on the evenness of utilized substrates in Biolog microplate.Legumes could significantly enhance the number of cultural microorganisms,microbial biomass,and community catabolic diversity.Except for SF dominated by legumes,the biomass of fungi and the catabolic diversity of microbial community were higher in less disturbed soil beneath NS than in frequently disturbed soils beneath the other vegetation types.These results confirmed that high number of plant species,legumes,and natural vegetation types tend to support soil microbial communities with higher function.The present study also found a significant correlation between the number of cultured bacteria and catabolic diversity of the bacterial community.Different research methods led to varied results in this study.The combination of several approaches is recommended for accurately describing the characteristics of microbial communities in many respects.