Desenvolvimento de um equipamento óptico para o estudo do movimento vertical de cianobactérias – Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii

Abstract

Cylindrospermopsis raciborskii is among the most common species observed in cyanobacterial blooms in Brazil. Since this species is potentially toxic (it can produce hepatotoxins and neurotoxins), blooms formation constitute by itself a serious problem, of interest to all the society, including Brazil. The occurrence of cyanobacterial blooms makes the costs of water treatment for human use very expensive. Furthermore, there are no efficient methods nowadays for removing the cyanotoxins from water. Because it is a relevant problem to all the society, it is important to describe quantitatively and qualitatively the responses these organisms have to external factors. Not only considering a real situation, but also trying to isolate factors and establish how important each of them is in determining the behavior of these cyanobacteria. In this work, a fully automatic system is developed to be used in laboratory experiments that focus on the responses of cyanobacteria to the environment via the floating regulation mechanism. This set can describe how the organisms are distributed along the tube which contains the sample. It can be configured to monitor this distribution periodically, so that it is possible to subject the organisms to some external factor of interest and to assess the changes over time in the concentration of organisms as a function of the depth in the water column.