Hydrogen isotope fractionation in freshwater algae I..pdf

Organic Geochemistry Organic Geochemistry 38 (2007) 582–608 /locate/orggeochem Hydrogen isotope fractionation in freshwater algae: I. Variations among lipids and species Zhaohui Zhang *, Julian P. Sachs 1 Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Building E34-166, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA Received 16 May 2006; received in revised form 19 November 2006; accepted 3 December 2006 Available online 21 December 2006 Abstract Five species of freshwater green algae, including three strains of Botryococcus braunii (two A Race, one B Race), Eudo- rina unicocca and Volvox aureus, were cultured under controlled conditions in media containing different concentrations of deuterium. The hydrogen isotopic ratios of lipids in the algae, including alkadienes, botryococcenes, heptadecenes, fatty acids, and phytadiene, were measured by gas chromatography–isotope ratio-mass spectrometry (GC–IRMS) and found to closely track water dD values. While correlation coefficients (R2) in excess of 0.99 for all lipids in all species suggest that lipid dD values can be used to determine water dD values, hydrogen isotope fractionation was found to vary systematically between lipids and lipid homologues within a single alga, as well as for the same lipid between species of algae. Under similar growth conditions, two species of Chlorophyceae (Eudorina