Quantitative exploration of the contribution of settlement,growth, dispersal and grazing to the accumulation of natural marine biofilms on antifouling and fouling-release coatings |
| |
| Authors: | Benjamin AS Van Mooy Laura R Hmelo Helen F Fredricks Justin E Ossolinski Byron E Pedler Daniel J Bogorff |
| |
| Institution: | 1. Department of Marine Chemistry and Geochemistry, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA;2. Department of Microbiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA;3. Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, La Jolla, CA, USA;4. BioCurrents Research Center, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, USA;5. Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA |
| |
| Abstract: | The accumulation of microbial biofilms on ships’ hulls negatively affects ship performance and efficiency while also playing a role in the establishment of even more detrimental hard-fouling communities. However, there is little quantitative information on how the accumulation rate of microbial biofilms is impacted by the balance of the rates of cell settlement, in situ production (ie growth), dispersal to surrounding waters and mortality induced by grazers. These rates were quantified on test panels coated with copper-based antifouling (AF) or polymer-based fouling-release (FR) coatings by using phospholipids as molecular proxies for microbial biomass. The results confirmed the accepted modes of efficacy of these two types of coatings. In a more extensive set of experiments with only the FR coatings, it was found that seasonally averaged cellular production rates were 1.5 ± 0.5 times greater than settlement and the dispersal rates were 2.7 ± 0.8 greater than grazing. The results of this study quantitatively describe the dynamic balance of processes leading to the accumulation of microbial biofilm on coatings designed for ships’ hulls. |
| |
| Keywords: | marine microbial biofilms ship’s hull biofouling microfouling intact polar lipids microbial phospholipids sediment microelectrode |
|
|
