Competition between a toxic and a non-toxic Microcystis strain under constant and pulsed nitrogen and phosphorus supply

The toxicity of a harmful algal bloom is strongly determined by the relative abundance of non-toxic and toxic genotypes and might therefore be regulated by competition for growth-limiting resources. Here, we studied how the toxic Microcystis aeruginosa strain PCC 7806 and a non-toxic mutant compete for nitrogen and phosphorus under constant and pulsed nutrient supply. Our monoculture and competition experiments show that these closely related genotypes have distinct nutrient physiologies and that they differ in their ability to compete for nitrogen and phosphorus. The toxic wild type won the competition under nitrogen limitation, while the non-toxic mutant dominated under phosphorus limitation. Pulses of both nitrogen and phosphorus increased the dominance of the toxic genotype, which lead to an even faster competitive exclusion of the non-toxic genotype under nitrogen pulses and to coexistence of both genotypes under phosphorus pulses. Our findings indicate that the genotype level dynamics driven by resource competition can be an important factor in determining cyanobacterial bloom toxicity.