Effect of Growth Conditions Upon the Subsurface Transport
Behavior of a Ground-Water Protist
By Ronald W. Harvey, Naleen A. Mayberry, Nancy E. Kinner, and David W. Metge
ABSTRACT
A low-nutrient, slightly acidic, porous-media growth procedure was used to
grow Spumella guttula, a ground-water nanoflagellate, for an injection
and recovery transport experiment involving an organically contaminated aquifer,
Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The new growth procedure mimiced conditions within
the aquifer and maintained the nanoflagellates' small (2-3 microns [µm]) size.
This allowed assessment of its potential for advective transport through the
aquifer sediments. Results from the in-situ transport experiment suggest a
high transport potential, which was about two orders of magnitude greater
than was observed in an earlier experiment using the same nanoflagellate grown
in conventional liquid-broth media. The high degree of mobility of S. guttula
in the aquifer sediments has important ecological implications for the protistan
community within the contaminated aquifer sediments.