Vampire strain of predatory algae pest can destroy healthy green algae ponds

In New Mexico, new DNA analysis by Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers has revealed surprising genetic diversity in a bacterium that poses a persistent threat to the algae biofuels industry. With the evocative name Vampirovibrio chlorellavorus, the predatory pest sucks out the contents of the algae cells (thus the vampire reference) and reduces a productive, thriving, green algae pond to a vat of rotting sludge.

The research team sequenced two strains of Vampirovibrio from the same pond. The two samples collected one year apart came from an outdoor algae cultivation system in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona run by University of Arizona collaborators Seth Steichen and Judith Brown. The team sequenced and analyzed the genomes to identify the genes involved in predation, infection and cell death of the valuable Chlorella algae that the bacterium targets.