Phytoplankton research could improve biofuel yields

In Connecticut, Yale University researchers in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology found that by accounting for changes in an organism’s plasticity they can develop better population predictions for phytoplankton, which can prove beneficial for biofuel operations. Higher biofuel yields could be obtained by growing algae in environments with fluctuating temperatures rather than by growing the organisms in standard stocks with constant temperatures, said David Vasseur, a professor in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department the study’s senior author.

The researchers were optimistic that the study could help with algal blooms which are detrimental to lakes and reservoirs. Before the potential applications bear fruit, however, scientists must conduct further research and in addition to testing their model on other species, researchers would like to develop a “more comprehensive framework” of the model that can be used flexibly.