Abstract
The occurrence of toxic bloom-forming cyanobacteria, Microcystis aeruginosa, has been frequently reported worldwide. These colony forming toxic cyanobacteria harbour a wide range of heterotrophic bacterial communities. The present study has attempted to understand the bloom dynamics of M. aeruginosa along with isolating their colony-associated culturable heterotrophic bacteria from two freshwater ponds in south India with a persisting cyanobacterial bloom. The monthly monitoring of these study areas revealed the conducive role of warm, stagnant waters with high nutrients in forming M. aeruginosa bloom. The peak values of temperature, nitrate, and phosphate at station 1 reached up to 30.5 °C, 4.48 mg/L, 1.64 mg/L, and at station 2, 31 °C, 3.45 mg/L, and 0.62 mg/L, respectively. Twenty-eight bacterial isolates belonging to Alphaproteobacteria, Betaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria, Actinobacteria, and Firmicutes were obtained during the study. Among these 28 isolates, Firmicutes was dominant with the M. aeruginosa bloom from both the study areas.
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The first author is thankful to the Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kochi, Kerala, India, for the award of Junior Research Fellowship (U-JRF). This investigation was carried out as a part of the Seed Money for New Research Initiatives (SMNRI) programme under the State Plan Grant (2021-22) of Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), Kerala, India.
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RM and SSP wrote the manuscript with input from LCT. RM, SSP, and AP conducted the field study. RM and LCT contributed to the taxonomic identification. KBP supervised this study and provided research materials.
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Mohan, R., Pillai, S.S., Purushothaman, A. et al. Phylogenic diversity of bacteria associated with potentially toxic cyanobacteria Microcystis aeruginosa: a synthesis on its bloom dynamics. Folia Microbiol 69, 677–691 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12223-023-01108-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12223-023-01108-1