3.4.7 Carbon mass balance and its dynamics in the mixed culture
Table 15 and Figure 10 presents data for a carbon mass balance and the cycling of
carbon through three pools in the mixed species culture grown for 576 hours in UDA.
The three physical pools were the extracellular, the fungal biomass, and the carbon
dioxide evolved during the lag, exponential and stationary phases. The law o f mass
conversation requires that, the sum o f the carbon content in all three pools at each time of
sampling equals the amount o f fatty acid carbon added to the fungal mixed culture at time
zero. Table 15 shows that the carbon measured at different times o f sampling always
accounted for 100% o f the carbon added at time zero.