Abstract
Algae hold much promise as a potential feedstock for biofuels and other products, but scaling up biomass production remains challenging. We hypothesized that multispecies assemblages, or polycultures, could improve crop yield when grown in media with mixed nitrogen sources, as found in wastewater. We grew mono- and poly- cultures of algae in four distinct growth media that differed in the form (i.e., nitrate, ammonium, urea, plus a mixture of all three) but not the concentration of nitrogen. We found that mean biomass productivity was positively correlated with algal species richness, and that this relationship was strongest in mixed nitrogen media (on average 88% greater biomass production in 5-species polycultures than in monocultures in mixed nitrogen treatment). We also found that the relationship between nutrient use efficiency and species richness was positive across nitrogen treatments, but greatest in mixed nitrogen media. While polycultures outperformed the most productive monoculture only 0-14% of the time in this experiment, they outperformed the average monoculture 26-52% of the time. Our results suggest that algal polycultures have the potential to be highly productive, and can be effective in recycling nutrients and treating wastewater, offering a sustainable and cost-effective solution for biofuel production.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 3769-3776 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Environmental Science and Technology |
| Volume | 52 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 20 2018 |
Funding
Funding for this project was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy and Efficiency and Renewable Energy: Bioenergy Technology Office. Sincere appreciation is extended to Val Smith, for his insight and support. We thank Tim Theiss, Devinn Lambert, Jesse Morris, Gail Morris, Natalie Griffiths, Kitty McCracken, Nikki Jones, Jana Randolph Phillips, and Allison Fortner for technical assistance. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).