Effects of Temperature & Illuminance on Chlorella Growth Uncoupled From Cell Division

Abstract

Growth is most often measured as increase in mass. In an individual cell this process is interrupted by cell division. Growth studies on nonsynchronized microbial populations usually produce data affected by both of these processes since a nonsynchronized population consists of cells in various developmental stages. The separation of growth from cell division is technically feasible either in studies of a single cell or of a synchronized population of cells. With the synchronization technique, metabolic activity in a population of cells can be studied as if it had taken place in a single cell. Furthermore, individual variations are cancelled by statistically averaging characteristics of a multitude of cells, each of which is in the same developmental stage. The observations on growth reported in this paper were made on synchronized algal suspensions in which cells were allowed to grow, and in which no cell division took place until after the end of the experiment.