Iron availability and the release of iron-complexing ligands by Emiliania huxleyi

The ubiquitous algal species, Emiliania huxleyi, was incubated in sea water supplemented only with nitrate and phosphate (N and P) without chelating agents to control metal speciation. Growth was slow in a “low-iron” culture containing 1.3 nM iron and was found to be iron-limited, growth-accelerating when a 1-nM iron addition was made. The growth rate in a “high-iron” culture (5.4 nM iron) was greater, reaching 0.4 div day−1 but this culture too was found to have become iron-limited when a 9-nM iron addition was made on day 17 of the incubation. Both cultures were found to release iron-complexing ligands in excess of the iron concentration, 6 nM in the low-iron culture, and 10 nM in the high-iron culture. More ligands were produced after the iron addition taking the ligand concentration to 11 nM in the low-iron culture. The data show that the ligands are released in response to the iron addition, when at least some of the iron had already been taken up. This type of release is contrary to the concept of a siderophore, which is supposed to be released in periods of lack of iron; however the increase in the ligand concentration is similar to that released by the natural community in response to the iron addition in the IRON-EX II experiment [Rue, E.L., Bruland, K.W., 1997. The role of organic complexation on ambient iron chemistry in the equatorial Pacific Ocean and the response of a mesoscale iron addition experiment. Limnol. Oceanogr. 42, 901–910]. The enhanced growth in the cultures when more iron was added indicated that the organically complexed iron present in the cultures was not immediately available to the organisms (or at least not at sufficiently high rate), and that the organisms responded to freshly added, inorganic, iron.