Culturing

Protocols for Isolation and Culturing of Freshwater Algae

Algal cultures are essential when conducting competition studies, bioassays, assessment of zooplankton food preferences, and determination of algal life histories. They are also necessary for molecular systematic work. Algal cultures may be "unialgal," which means they contain only one kind of alga, usually a clonal population (but which may contain bacteria, fungi, or protozoa), or cultures may be "axenic," meaning that they contain only one alga and no bacteria, fungi or protozoa. There are four major techniques for obtaining unialgal isolates: streaking, spraying, serial dilution, and single-cell isolations. Streaking and spraying are useful for single-celled, colonial, or filamentous algae that will grow on an agar surface; cultures of some flagellates, such as Chlamydomonas and Cryptomonas may also be obtained by these procedures. Many flagellates, however, as well as other types of algae must be isolated by single-organism isolations or serial-dilution techniques.

Culture Collections

UTEX The Culture Collection of Algae [1]

Canadian Phycological Culture Centre (CPCC) [2]

SAG Culture Collection, University of Göttingen [3]

Culture Collection of Algae and Protozoa (CCAP) [4]

A list of Algal Culture Collections [5]

Algae Depot [6]

Ward's Natural Science Algal Cultures [7]

Training Website

Online Seminar on cell culture - controlling contamination [8]

Useful Websites

Phycological collection catelogues [9]