Short-term changes of phytoplankton communities after nutrient addition and establishment of stable mass culture condition to prepare the type approval test of USCG Phase-II in mesocosm enclosure

In order to prepare for the type approval test for the United States Coast Guard (USCG) Phase-II of Ballast Water Treatment System (BWTS), a phytoplankton mass culture was conducted in a mesocosm enclosure. We evaluated the response of the phytoplankton community after nutrient addition (+N, +P, and +NP) and investigated the development of the species with increasing culture time. After nutrient dosing, the phytoplankton population significantly (p < 0.05) increased from day 1 to day 3, depending on the nutrient treatments In particular, the specific growth rate of the phytoplankton community in the case of +NP treatment and + N treatment were estimated to be 2.47 d and 1.98 d, respectively. The phytoplankton population density in the case of + NP treatment was approximately 50 times higher than that of the control group, suggesting that these treatments could be useful for mass culturing phytoplankton (> 75% of natural community) for the approval regulation of USCG Phase-II. In the phytoplankton community of the mesocosm, Pseudo-nitzchia spp. dominated in the logarithmic growth phase. The cell density decreased significantly (p< 0.05) with increasing time, coinciding with the nutrient limitation. At that time, the dominance of Pseudo-nitzchia spp. shifted to that of Cylindrotheca closterium. Therefore, the optimum nutrient concentration (N: 30 μM, P: 3 μM) and reasonable harvesting time (after 3 days in summer) found in this study for the mass culturing of phytoplankton may be helpful to meet the USCG Phase-II biological criteria to be used in BWTS.

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