Microbiome and optical early-warning indicators of outdoor Picochlorum celeri pond crashes

Le résumé fourni par la source

Sudden pond crashes remain a major barrier to reliable algal biomass production, and the biological processes driving these events are not well understood. Here we report the first documented crash of Picochlorum celeri , a species otherwise recognized for exceptional resilience in outdoor cultivation. By tracking temporal microbiome dynamics during this biomass collapse in raceway ponds, we identified distinct community trends before, during, and after the crash. Metagenome-assembled genome (MAG)-level analysis revealed clear clustering by biomass, indicating that microbial assemblages remained stable over days to weeks and shifted prior to collapse. Specific taxa showed contrasting associations with Picochlorum biomass, with Psychromarinibacter positively correlated and an Azotimanducaceae-affiliated pseudomonad negatively correlated. These results indicate that microbial community change was detectable prior to measurable biomass decline. Complementing these biological signatures, high-frequency spectroradiometric reflectance measurements detected physiological deviations 24–36 h before biomass loss, including suppressed diel growth and reduced accuracy of reflectance-based biomass estimates during early crash stages. These findings link microbial dynamics to operational outcomes and highlight opportunities for biotic countermeasures, including bacteriophages, protective bacteriomes, and small-molecule inhibitors. Together, this work demonstrates that even resilient hosts such as P. celeri are vulnerable to microbial disruption and establishes a path from early detection to targeted intervention strategies, while outlining a conceptual framework for integrating microbiome and optical indicators into dynamic reliability models that enhance the scalability of algal cultivation.

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