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. 1990 May;56(5):1303–1309. doi: 10.1128/aem.56.5.1303-1309.1990

Carbon- and Nitrogen-to-Volume Ratios of Bacterioplankton Grown under Different Nutritional Conditions †

Toshi Nagata 1,‡,*, Yasunori Watanabe 1
PMCID: PMC184399  PMID: 16348184

Abstract

Carbon- and nitrogen-to-volume (C/V and N/V) ratios were determined for freshwater bacterial assemblages grown in lake water filtrate or in water enriched with nutrients (aqueous extract of lake seston, glucose, arginine, phosphate, or ammonium). Biovolume was measured by epifluorescence microphotography, and carbon and nitrogen biomasses were measured with a CHN analyzer. Despite large variations of nutritional conditions (i.e., the composition and concentration of the dissolved organic carbon) and different mean cell sizes of the bacterial assemblage (0.17 to 1.8 μm3 per cell), the C/V, N/V, and carbon-to-nitrogen weight ratios varied little (C/V ratio, 0.14 pg of C per μm3 [standard deviation, 0.057; n = 15]; N/V ratio, 0.027 pg of N per μm3 [standard deviation; 0.011, n = 15]; carbon-to-nitrogen weight ratio, 5.6 [standard deviation, 2.2, n = 15]). An average C/V ratio of 0.12 pg of C per μm3 that was derived from natural and cultured bacterial assemblages is proposed as an appropriate conversion factor for estimation of the biomass of freshwater bacteria.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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