costatum. In recent years, mono-specific and multi-species blooms have been commonly observed in various selleck inhibitor coastal waters. Till now, however, no satisfactory explanations have been provided to explain why some microalgal species are able to dominate in a phytoplankton community, and it has been unclear how the succession of certain microalgal species forms. It has been increasingly clear that allelopathy is of special interest from an evolutionary perspective, since allelopathic substances can function as a defence (against microbes, viruses or competing plants) and represent adaptive characters that have been subjected

to natural selection processes (Rengefors and Legrand, 2001 and Bertholdsson, 2012). P. tricornutum and P. donghaiense can proliferate and assemble very quickly in coastal waters, which adversely affects the aquatic ecosystem ( Cai et al. 2009). Therefore it is crucial to investigate the interaction between these two marine microalgae. In our study, we observed inhibitory and stimulatory interactions between the cell growth of P. tricornutum and P. donghaiense, and their allelopathic effects in the filtrates by investigating cell densities and specific growth rates (data not shown). This will be useful in

elucidating the role of allelopathy in the succession of these two algae in the same ecosystem. Consequently, our findings have extended the field observations that in a natural ecosystem a monospecific bloom is replaced by another bloom, or that microalgal species form alternate blooms, such as Skeletonema, Heterosigma and Prorocentrum blooms. In conclusion, our results Trichostatin A purchase from controlled laboratory experiments

using axenic strains of P. tricornutum and P. donghaiense indicate that the growth of either species can be generally suppressed (or occasionally promoted) by the other, depending on initial cell densities and Ibrutinib concentration growth stages. The release of allelochemicals into the medium is an important way in which one species can affect another, which demonstrates that allelopathic interactions between/among sympatric microalgal species may involve a complex process in the formation and succession of harmful algal blooms. It needs to be pointed out that there are yet-to-be-defined mechanisms underlying allelopathic interactions among phytoplankton. Work is in progress to clarify the factors responsible for the growth and interactions among phytoplankton, identify such allelopathic substances and assess the role of allelopathy in natural phytoplankton populations. The authors thank Prof. Dr Yuanjiao Feng of the Institute of Tropical and Subtropical Ecology, South China Agricultural University, for her great help in revising the manuscript. The authors also wish to thank the two reviewers for their valuable comments which helped to improve the quality of this manuscript.