Hypersalinity enhances the production of extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) in the Texas brown tide alga, Aureoumbra lagunensis (Pelagophyceae)

Laboratory experiments with batch cultures showed that the Texas brown tide alga, Aureoumbra lagunensis Stockwell, DeYoe, Hargraves et Johnson, produced a large amount of extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) that formed an extracellular polysaccharide mucus layer, Both dissolved and particulate carbohydrate and EPS, concentrations increased as A. lagunensis cultures; progressed from exponential growth phase, through stationary phase, to declining phase. Particulate carbohydrate and EPS concentrations per cell were more than three times higher during the declining phase than that in exponential growth phase, reflecting a large increase in the EPS mucus layer. The amounts of carbohydrate and EPS produced by A. lagunensis were significantly higher under hypersaline conditions. The thicker EPS mucus layer surrounding A. lagunensis cells under hypersaline conditions might be a protective adaptation that permits it to bloom under hypersaline conditions that most other phytoplankton cannot survive, This could be one of the reasons why the Texas brown tide persisted in the Laguna Madre, an often hypersaline coastal lagoon, for 7 years.