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A Simple yet Accurate Method for the Estimation of the Biovolume of Planktonic Microorganisms
Determining the biomass of microbial plankton is central to the study of fluxes of energy and materials in aquatic ecosystems. This is typically accomplished by applying proper volume-to-carbon conversion factors to group-specific abundances and biovolumes. A critical step in this approach is the ac...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Public Library of Science
2016
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4873252/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27195667 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0151955 |
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author | Saccà, Alessandro |
author_facet | Saccà, Alessandro |
author_sort | Saccà, Alessandro |
collection | PubMed |
description | Determining the biomass of microbial plankton is central to the study of fluxes of energy and materials in aquatic ecosystems. This is typically accomplished by applying proper volume-to-carbon conversion factors to group-specific abundances and biovolumes. A critical step in this approach is the accurate estimation of biovolume from two-dimensional (2D) data such as those available through conventional microscopy techniques or flow-through imaging systems. This paper describes a simple yet accurate method for the assessment of the biovolume of planktonic microorganisms, which works with any image analysis system allowing for the measurement of linear distances and the estimation of the cross sectional area of an object from a 2D digital image. The proposed method is based on Archimedes’ principle about the relationship between the volume of a sphere and that of a cylinder in which the sphere is inscribed, plus a coefficient of ‘unellipticity’ introduced here. Validation and careful evaluation of the method are provided using a variety of approaches. The new method proved to be highly precise with all convex shapes characterised by approximate rotational symmetry, and combining it with an existing method specific for highly concave or branched shapes allows covering the great majority of cases with good reliability. Thanks to its accuracy, consistency, and low resources demand, the new method can conveniently be used in substitution of any extant method designed for convex shapes, and can readily be coupled with automated cell imaging technologies, including state-of-the-art flow-through imaging devices. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4873252 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-48732522016-06-09 A Simple yet Accurate Method for the Estimation of the Biovolume of Planktonic Microorganisms Saccà, Alessandro PLoS One Research Article Determining the biomass of microbial plankton is central to the study of fluxes of energy and materials in aquatic ecosystems. This is typically accomplished by applying proper volume-to-carbon conversion factors to group-specific abundances and biovolumes. A critical step in this approach is the accurate estimation of biovolume from two-dimensional (2D) data such as those available through conventional microscopy techniques or flow-through imaging systems. This paper describes a simple yet accurate method for the assessment of the biovolume of planktonic microorganisms, which works with any image analysis system allowing for the measurement of linear distances and the estimation of the cross sectional area of an object from a 2D digital image. The proposed method is based on Archimedes’ principle about the relationship between the volume of a sphere and that of a cylinder in which the sphere is inscribed, plus a coefficient of ‘unellipticity’ introduced here. Validation and careful evaluation of the method are provided using a variety of approaches. The new method proved to be highly precise with all convex shapes characterised by approximate rotational symmetry, and combining it with an existing method specific for highly concave or branched shapes allows covering the great majority of cases with good reliability. Thanks to its accuracy, consistency, and low resources demand, the new method can conveniently be used in substitution of any extant method designed for convex shapes, and can readily be coupled with automated cell imaging technologies, including state-of-the-art flow-through imaging devices. Public Library of Science 2016-05-19 /pmc/articles/PMC4873252/ /pubmed/27195667 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0151955 Text en © 2016 Alessandro Saccà http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Saccà, Alessandro A Simple yet Accurate Method for the Estimation of the Biovolume of Planktonic Microorganisms |
title | A Simple yet Accurate Method for the Estimation of the Biovolume of Planktonic Microorganisms |
title_full | A Simple yet Accurate Method for the Estimation of the Biovolume of Planktonic Microorganisms |
title_fullStr | A Simple yet Accurate Method for the Estimation of the Biovolume of Planktonic Microorganisms |
title_full_unstemmed | A Simple yet Accurate Method for the Estimation of the Biovolume of Planktonic Microorganisms |
title_short | A Simple yet Accurate Method for the Estimation of the Biovolume of Planktonic Microorganisms |
title_sort | simple yet accurate method for the estimation of the biovolume of planktonic microorganisms |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4873252/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27195667 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0151955 |
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