Nitrogen Assimilation by Cyanobacteria Colonies in North American Lakes

Five Microcystis bloom-prone lakes across North America, including Lake Erie and two hypereutrophic systems near New York City, were studied. The dataset likely contains microbial diversity and nitrogen uptake measurements for colony-associated and free-living plankton fractions, derived from high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA and 15N-labeled nutrients. It was authored by Ann Marie E. Famularo-Pecora and last updated on April 24, 2026.

Use Cases

• Compare nitrogen assimilation pathways between Microcystis colonies and free-living plankton based on volumetric uptake rates.
• Analyze the relationship between lake trophic state index and nitrogen uptake rates across different ecosystems.
• Investigate the dominance of urea as a nitrogen source during cyanobacterial blooms based on uptake composition percentages.
• Model the correlation between bloom intensity (microcystin, chlorophyll-a) and biomass-adjusted nitrogen uptake by colonies.

Strengths

• Data covers five distinct lake ecosystems, including large eutrophic and smaller hypereutrophic systems.
• Uptake rate comparisons are quantified with specific fold differences (2-to-22-fold higher for colonies).
• Nitrogen source contributions are detailed with percentage ranges (urea comprised 52–72% in larger lakes).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The primary data file is a DOCX document, which may require extraction or conversion to a structured format.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

High throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA and 15N-labeled nutrient experiments.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-24 05:40:13; freshness should be verified.

Geography

North American lakes, including Lake Erie and two systems near New York City.