Influence of temperature, light and nutrients on the growth rates of the macroalga Gracilaria domingensis in synthetic seawater using experimental design

In the present study, the daily relative growth rates (DRGR, in percent per day) of the red macroalga Gracilaria domingensis in synthetic seawater was investigated for the combined influence of five factors, i.e., light (L), temperature (T), nitrate (N), phosphate (P), and molybdate (M), using a statistical design method. The ranges of the experimental cultivation conditions were T, 18–26°C; L, 74–162 μmol photons m−2 s−1; N, 40–80 μmol L−1; P, 8–16 μmol L−1; and M, 1–5 nmol L−1. The optimal conditions, which resulted in a maximum growth rate of ≥6.4% d−1 from 7 to 10 days of cultivation, were determined by analysis of variance (ANOVA) multivariate factorial analysis (with a 25 full factorial design) to be L, 74 μmol photons m−2 s−1; T, 26°C; N, 80 μmol L−1; P, 8 μmol L−1; and M, 1 nmol L−1. In additional, these growth rate values are close to the growth rate values in natural medium (von Stosch medium), i.e., 6.5–7.0% d−1. The results analyzed by the ANOVA indicate that the factors N and T are highly significant linear terms, X L, (α = 0.05). On the other hand, the only significant quadratic term (X Q) was that for L. Statistically significant interactions between two different factors were found between T vs. L and N vs. T. Finally, a two-way (linear/quadratic interaction) model provided a quite reasonable correlation between the experimental and predicted DRGR values (R adjusted 2 = 0.9540).