In Situ Determination of the Effects of Lead and Copper on Cyanobacterial Populations in Microcosms

摘要

BackgroundBiomass has been studied as biomarker to evaluate the effect of heavy metals on microbial communities. Nevertheless, the most important methodological problem when working with natural and artificial microbial mats is the difficulty to evaluate changes produced on microorganism populations that are found in thicknesses of just a few mm depth.