There were no significant interactions between the
effects of salinity and NH4–N concentrations (pN0.05)
on spore biomass (Table 2-2). Algal spores exhibited
increasing biomass with increasing salinity (from 5 to
35 psu) (Fig. 1B; Table 3). However, statistically
significant differences ( pb0.05; Newman–Keuls test)
only occurred between the extreme tested levels: 5 psu,
which according to the previous results seems to limit
the increase in spore biomass and 35 psu, which significantly
favoured it. The highest NH4–N concentration
(102.8 μmol l− 1) limited the increase in spore biomass,
compared with a significant higher spore biomass at
the lowest NH4–N concentration. Unexpectedly, the
biomass of algal spores tended to decrease with increasing
NH4–N concentrations but, statistically, there were only
significant differences between biomass at 12.8 and
biomass at 102.4 μmol l− 1 of NH4–N (pb0.05; Newman–
Keuls test). The highest salinity tested (35 psu)
together with the lowest NH4–N concentration allowed a
higher biomass of spores and, consequently, a higher
growth rate