Allelopathy in freshwater cyanobacteria

Freshwater cyanobacteria produce several bioactive secondary metabolites with diverse chemical structure, which may achieve high concentrations in the aquatic medium when cyanobacterial blooms occur. Some of the compounds released by cyanobacteria have allelopathic properties, influencing the biolog...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Critical reviews in microbiology 2009-11, Vol.35 (4), p.271-282
Main Authors: Leão, Pedro N., Vasconcelos, M. Teresa S.D., Vasconcelos, Vítor M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
allelochemicals
allelopathy
Bacteria - drug effects
Cyanobacteria
Cyanobacteria - chemistry
Cyanobacteria - classification
Cyanobacteria - isolation & purification
Cyanobacteria - metabolism
Ecosystem
Fresh Water - microbiology
freshwater
Pheromones - analysis
Pheromones - metabolism
Pheromones - pharmacology
Plants - drug effects
secondary metabolites
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Freshwater cyanobacteria produce several bioactive secondary metabolites with diverse chemical structure, which may achieve high concentrations in the aquatic medium when cyanobacterial blooms occur. Some of the compounds released by cyanobacteria have allelopathic properties, influencing the biological processes of other phytoplankton or aquatic plants. These kinds of interactions are more easily detectable under laboratory studies; however their ecological relevance is often debated. Recent research has discovered new allelopathic properties in some cyanobacteria species, new allelochemicals and elucidated some of the allelopathic mechanisms. Ecosystem-level approaches have shed some light on the factors that influence allelopathic interactions, as well as how cyanobacteria may be able to modulate their surrounding environment by means of allelochemical release. Nevertheless, the role of allelopathy in cyanobacteria ecology is still not well understood, and its clarification should benefit from carefully designed field studies, chemical characterization of allelochemicals and new methodological approaches at the "omics" level.
ISSN:1040-841X
1549-7828
DOI:10.3109/10408410902823705