Can I ask you for a help please:
I need to convert number of phytoplankton species to equivalent carbon. Our cell volume is: 297 µm3
Dear Mohsen,
You can use the equation given in Table 3 of Montagnes et al. 1994.
(Montagnes, D.J.S., J.A. Berges, P. J. Harrison, and F. J. R. Taylor. 1994. Estimating carbon, nitrogen, protein, and chlorophyll a from volume in marine phytoplankton. Limnol. Oceanogr. 39(5): 1044-1060).
For a cell volume of 297 µm3, the carbon content is 30.8 pg C per cell.
Regards,
Claude
Thanks Claude for you repLy. But can i ask you please again how to got the microgram carbon per liter. For example if I have 10000 of this cell in liter how will be the carbon concentration in microgram
thanks in advance
mohsen
Dear Mohsen,
Phytoplankton includes all photosynthetic planktonic organisms (like diatoms, dinoflagellates, cyanobacteria, etc). Among each group, the carbon content per unit volume is varying.
You may follow Montagnes et al. (1994) for diatoms, flagellates and cyanobacteria and for other groups see the list of references given in Table 4 by Menden-Deuer and Lessard (2000), to convert volume to carbon biomass.
If you have different biovolume values (µm³) for each phytoplankton individual, sum them as total volume and apply the equation you will get total biomass (pg C/L). Then you may convert pg to µg by divide the biomass value by 1000,000.
If you have a mean volume for all phytoplankton, multiply with total count and apply the equation.
E.g.
297 (V/individual)*10,000 (abundance/L)=2,970,000µm³ (total biovolume/L)
as per Montagnes et al. 1994;
0.109*2,970,000^0.991=283,092 pg C/L
283,092/1000,000=0.28 µg C/L
Regards,
Karnan C
Check out Menden Deuer's paper
Article Menden-Deuer S, Lessard EJ.. Carbon to volume relationships ...
Dear Mohsen,
You can use or take into account the Richard R. Strathmann (1967) equations. You can also take a look at the works of R. Margalef and F.X. Niell.
I hope to see your results.
Regards
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