有害有毒赤潮の生物学

摘要

Algicidal bacteria are aquatic bacteria that kill and prey upon phytoplankton and multiply using organic substances of killed phytoplankton. Algicidal bacteria appear to satisfy the Koch's postulate because these bacteria show behaviors of algal pathogens. As a dominant mechanism of algicidal activity, productions of algicidal matters such as prodigiosin, serine protease, and isatin, etc by bacteria have been reported for various phytoplankton species so far. In some case, algicidal substances were induced to produce by excreted organic matters from noxious phy-toplankton such as Karenia mikimotoi. The quorum sensing also regulate the production of the prodigiosin as algi-cidal substances by a species of y-proteobacterium. The mechanism of quorum sensing is widely employed for various activities of bacteria in nature. It appears to be promising to study the mechanisms of algicidal activity with algicidal substances from the view point of quorum sensing in marine ecosystems.