The ability of some species of cyanobacteria to accumulate the aromatic hydrocarbons

Abstract

The present study deals with the isolation and identification of three species of blue green algae (cyanobacteria) : Microcystis aeruginosa , Hapalosiphon aureus and Anabaena variabilis which were collected from different stations of Shatt AL-Arab river (Abu AL-Khasib). They are purified isolated in vitro to oftain unialgal and axenic culture to test the ability of three species to accumulate total aromatic hydrocarbons for two weeks . The results demonstrated the ability of these three species to accumulate these compounds. The results indicate that A. variabilis accumulated more hydrocarbons than the other species 88.5 ppm in contrast to H. aureus 86.9 ppm and M. aeruginosa 58.6 ppm . There were significant differences P<0.05 between the species and the exposure period. The results showed that the concentration increased as the period increased