C. reinhardtii is the only species that has been analysed over numerous separate experiments and therefore the larger
sample size would likely have exacerbated the variation within the C. reinhardtii samples, which is almost as great as the variation between all other species. Thus, due to the similarity of themetabolic fingerprints from these microalgae species, the experimental-derived variation for the C. reinhardtii samples may affect the ability to differentiate between all the species, even when grown under non-stressed conditions.