Cultivation trials of a selected benthic dinoflagellate
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Date
2008
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Terengganu: Universiti Malaysia Terengganu
Abstract
The study on benthic dinoflagellates is still new in phycology. Benthic dinoflagellates
can be found attached to seaweeds, rocks and sediment with the flagella modified for
attaching to hard surfaces. Some of them are known to produce toxins and they can affect
the seaweed culture industry. This study was an attempt to culture a selected benthic
dinoflagellate in laboratory conditions by using different media and to compare their
growth in all the culture media tested. The number of cells was recorded everyday and
the growth rate was determined by using the graph of number of cell per 1 OμL versus
culture age (day). Establishing the culture of benthic dinoflagellates is important for
further detailed studies such as biomolecular aspects, phycotoxin, taxonomy and anatomy.
Three culture media used in this study were ES-DK, f/2 medium and Soil Extract+ 90%
seawater. These media were chosen as ES-DK is the culture medium used to maintain the
benthic dinoflagellate culture in University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), f/2 medium is
the culture medium that had shown good results in culturing a wide variety of microalgae
and Soil Extract + 90% Seawater was chosen because it is the benthic dinoflagellates'
natural habitat. Thus soil extract may provide the nutrients needed for their growth.
Result shows that f/2 medium can maintain the culture until it reached 1033 cells while
ES-DK reached 150 cells, while soil extract+ 90% Seawater can only keep the cells alive
without replication. Thus, f/2 medium is suitable for mass culture and for maintaining
mass culture stock while ES-DK is suitable to be used to study their morphology and
growth phases. Soil Extract + 90% Seawater is suitable to be used in maintaining the
newly-collected field samples while transferring them from the sampling site to the
laboratory.
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LP 5 FMSM 1 2008, Chew, Eng How