Quantification of track and grain density autoradiography and evaluation of 14C loss on preservation

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Sources of error in quantifying autoradiography were determined with unialgal cultures and natural assemblages. Carbon-14 activity of cells as recorded by track autoradiography was generally not significantly different from scintillation counts. Differences which did occur were apparently due largely to filter-retained extracellular 14 C. An analysis of 37 preparations confirmed that tracks per cell for healthy log-phase populations followed a Poisson distribution. Quantification and analysis of intraspecific distributions for the grain density technique were relatively difficult. 14 C loss on preservation was lower and more consistent (0–21 %) than previously reported. Autoradiographs indicated that this loss consisted of unfixed filter-retained 14 C or an extracellular release product rather than carbon within algal cells. Thus, track autoradiography was more reliable for quantifying species-specific net productivity than other studies have indicated.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: