To demonstrate the significant metabolic plasticity that eukaryotic
microalgae, including a marine microalga, can display in response to
an environmental stress such as nutrient starvation, analysis was performed
using the marine alga D. tertiolecta. D. teriolecta cultures grown
for 20 days until late exponential phase in artificial seawater (ASP2)mediumwere
compared to those cultivated in fertilised seawater medium.
As would be expected, growth of the cultures was significantly increased
following fertilisation with an approximately 2.5-fold increase
in wet weight biomass (data not shown).