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Algae through the looking glass
Author(s) -
Coltelli Primo,
Barsanti Laura,
Evangelista Valter,
Gualtieri Paolo
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
microscopy research and technique
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.536
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1097-0029
pISSN - 1059-910X
DOI - 10.1002/jemt.22820
Subject(s) - microscopy , chromaticity , fluorescence microscope , biological system , microscope , population , focus (optics) , metabolic activity , biology , artificial intelligence , fluorescence , computer science , optics , physics , demography , sociology
Microalgae are one of the most suitable subjects for testing the potentiality of light microscopy and image analysis, because of the size of single cells, their endogenous chromaticity, and their metabolic and physiological characteristics. Microscope observations and image analysis can use microalgal cells from lab cultures or collected from water bodies as model to investigate metabolic processes, behavior/reaction of cells under chemical or photic stimuli, and dynamics of population in the natural environment in response to changing conditions. In this paper we will describe the original microscope we set up together with the image processing techniques we improved to deal with these topics. Our system detects and recognizes in‐focus cells, extracts their features, measures cell concentration in multi‐algal samples, reconstructs swimming cell tracks, monitors metabolic processes, and measure absorption and fluorescent spectra of subcellular compartments. It can be used as digital microscopy station for algal cell biology and behavioral studies, and field analysis applications.