Open Mass Cultures of Marine Microalgae for Biodiesel Production: Laboratory Approach to Study Species Competition in Mixed Cultures

Since the interspecific competition represents a critical issue for biodiesel production in open mass cultures of microalgae, laboratory studies aimed to select competitive species receive significant interest. In this work, a laboratory approach based on the method of multisizing cell counting was developed to monitor the competition course of single algal species grown in mixed cultures. Two marine microalgae, Dunaliella tertiolecta and Phaeodactylum tricornutum, were used to setup an induced-contamination assay, with the aim to test their competitive capabilities. The evaluation of the oil production by dried biomass extraction was coupled to the growth assay to investigate the effect of competition on oil yield. The adopted experimental approach revealed effective as a method to selectively measure the algal growth of single species in mixed cultures, enabling to evaluate the competitive properties of Dunaliella outgrowing the contaminant species Phaeodactylum. At the end of the experiment the dominant species contributed more than 90% to the total biomass, while no loss of oil production was observed, the oil yield in the mixed being even higher than in the unialgal culture (3.15 vs. 2.28 mg). The outcomes of the induced competition suggest the use of Dunaliella as a competitive oil-producer species and especially support the potential of the experimental approach to be used for preliminary screening to drive species selection for open mass cultures.