Table 4. Protein:carbohydrate (Protein:CHO), protein:lipid (Protein:Lipid), and carbohydrate:lipid (CHO:Lipid) and predicted C:N (mol:mol) based on macromolecular composition for different phyla of microalgae under nutrient-sufficient exponential growth.

The top value is the median macromolecular ratio, the middle values in brackets denote the 95% credible interval on the ratio, and the bottom value is the number of observations. The last column is an independent estimate of mean molar C:N measured in exponentially growing laboratory cultures [6,7], the middle values in brackets denote the 95% confidence interval, and the bottom value is the number of experimental observations.

	Protein: CHO	Protein: Lipid	CHO: Lipid	C:N (predicted)	C:N(observed)
Cyanobacteria	2.4	4.2	2.3	6.0	5.7
	(1.8, 3.1)	(3.0, 5.8)	(1.5, 3.5)	(5.4, 6.6)	(3.6, 7.8)
	23	24	22		9
Chlorophyta	2.4	2.2	0.9	6.8	7.9
	(2.0, 3.0)	(1.8, 2.7)	(0.7, 1.2)	(6.2, 7.4)	(6.6, 9.3)
	84	81	80		15
Cryptophyta	2.8	2.7	0.6	7.0
	(2.1, 5.0)	(1.7, 4.3)	(0.4, 1.1)	(5.9, 8.2)
	23	18	18
Bacillariophyta	2.4	1.7	0.6	8.3	7.5
	(2.0, 2.9)	(1.2, 2.0)	(0.5, 0.7)	(7.6, 9.3)	(6.4, 8.5)
	166	132	132		12
Haptophyta	2.3	1.8	0.8	7.4
	(1.8, 2.9)	(1.4, 2.3)	(0.6, 1.1)	(6.5, 8.5)
	119	113	111
Ochrophyta	2.4	1.3	0.5	8.3
	(1.8, 3.5)	(0.9, 1.9)	(0.3, 0.8)	(7.0, 9.8)
	40	40	40
Dinophyta	2.2	2.3	1.6	8.6	9.3
	(1.6, 2.8)	(1.7, 3.1)	(1.0, 2.4)	(7.0, 11.0)	(7.2, 11.4)
	45	36	37		9
Grand Mean	2.4	2.2	0.9	7.0
	(2.1, 2.7)	(2.0, 2.5)	(0.8, 1.0)	(6.7, 7.3)
	502	446	442