Geographical distribution of red and green Noctiluca scintillans

The dinoflagellate Noctiluca scintillans is one of the most important and abundant red tide organisms and it is distributed world-wide. It occurs in two forms. Red Noctiluca is heterotrophic and fills the role of one of the microzooplankton grazers in the foodweb. In contrast, green Noctiluca contains a photosynthetic symbiont Pedinomonas noctilucae (a prasinophyte), but it also feeds on other plankton when the food supply is abundant. In this review, we document the global distribution of these two forms and include the first maps of their global distribution. Red Noctiluca occurs widely in the temperate to sub-tropical coastal regions of the world. It occurs over a wide temperature range of about 10°C to 25°C and at higher salinities (generally not in estuaries). It is particularly abundant in high productivity areas such as upwelling or eutrophic areas where diatoms dominate since they are its preferred food source. Green Noctiluca is much more restricted to a temperature range of 25°C–30°C and mainly occurs in tropical waters of Southeast Asia, Bay of Bengal (east coast of India), in the eastern, western and northern Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and recently it has become very abundant in the Gulf of Oman. Red and green Noctiluca do overlap in their distribution in the eastern, northern and western Arabian Sea with a seasonal shift from green Noctiluca in the cooler winter convective mixing, higher productivity season, to red Noctiluca in the more oligotrophic warmer summer season.

Maintenance of abyssal benthic foraminifera under high pressure and low temperature: some preliminary results

Abyssal benthic foraminifera have been maintained alive for periods of several weeks under laboratory simulated deep-sea conditions of high pressure and low temperature. In separate experiments, bacterial-sized fluorescent microspheres and three species of microalgae were supplied as food particles. Subsequent light and electron microscopy showed that the algae had been ingested by several foraminiferal species. Furthermore, the fine structure of the foraminiferal cytoplasm was well-preserved which indicates, along with the ingestion of algal food, that they had remained in a viable condition during the incubation. Other observations indicate that abyssal benthic foraminifera ingest naturally occurring photosynthetic cells carried to the deep-sea bed by rapidly sedimenting aggregates. The ability to keep foraminifera originating from depths exceeding 4000 m alive in the laboratory paves the way for the experimental investigation of some important issues in deep-sea biology and palaeoceanography.

The CO2 microalgae biorefinery: high value products and biofuels using halophilic microalgae in the “D-Factory”

Fuel-only algal systems are not economically feasible because yields are too low and costs too high for producing microalgal biomass compared to using agricultural residues e.g. straw. Biorefineries which integrate biomass conversion processes and equipment to produce fuels, power and chemicals from biomass, offer a solution. The CO2 microalgae biorefinery (D-Factory) is a 10 million Euro FP7-funded project which will cultivate the microalga Dunaliella in highly saline non-potable waters in photobioreactors and open raceways and apply biorefinery concepts and European innovations in biomass processing technologies to develop a basket of compounds from Dunaliella biomass, including the high value nutraceutical, β-carotene, and glycerol. Glycerol now finds markets both as a green chemical intermediate and as a biofuel in CHP applications as a result of novel combustion technology. Driving down costs by recovering the entire biomass of Dunaliella cells from saline cultivation water poses one of the many challenges for the D-Factory because Dunaliella cells are both motile, and do not possess an external cell wall, making them highly susceptible to cell rupture. Controlling expression of desired metabolic pathways to deliver the desired portfolio of compounds flexibly and sustainably to meet market demand is another. The first prototype D-Factory in Europe will be operational in 48 months, and will serve as a robust manifestation of the business case for global investment in algae biorefineries and in large-scale production of microalgae.