Abstract
Phytoplankton are often limited by iron in aquatic environments. Here we examine Fe bioavailability to phytoplankton by analyzing iron uptake from various Fe substrates by several species of phytoplankton grown under conditions of Fe limitation and comparing the measured uptake rate constants (Fe uptake rate/ substrate concentration). When unchelated iron, Fe′, buffered by an excess of the chelating agent EDTA is used as the Fe substrate, the uptake rate constants of all the eukaryotic phytoplankton species are tightly correlated and proportional to their respective surface areas (S.A.). The same is true when FeDFB is the substrate, but the corresponding uptake constants are one thousand times smaller than for Fe′. The uptake rate constants for the other substrates we examined fall mostly between the values for Fe′ and FeDFB for the same S.A. These two model substrates thus empirically define a bioavailability envelope with Fe′ at the upper and FeDFB at the lower limit of iron bioavailability. This envelope provides a convenient framework to compare the relative bioavailabilities of various Fe substrates to eukaryotic phytoplankton and the Fe uptake abilities of different phytoplankton species. Compared with eukaryotic species, cyanobacteria have similar uptake constants for Fe′ but lower ones for FeDFB. The unique relationship between the uptake rate constants and the S.A. of phytoplankton species suggests that the uptake rate constant of Fe-limited phytoplankton has reached a universal upper limit and provides insight into the underlying uptake mechanism.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to thank A Rose, B Lazar and Y Rosenberg for their insights and assistance during the preparation of this manuscript as well as the reviewers and editor for their valuable comments. This work was supported in part by the Israel USA Binational Science Foundation grant 2008097 awarded to FMMM and YS, a grant the US National Science Foundation awarded to FMMM, grant 806/11 from the Israeli Science Foundation awarded to NK and the Assemble FP7 research grant awarded to HL.
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Lis, H., Shaked, Y., Kranzler, C. et al. Iron bioavailability to phytoplankton: an empirical approach. ISME J 9, 1003–1013 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2014.199
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2014.199
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