Using Dirichlet tessellation to help estimate microbial biomass concentrations

Dirichlet tessellation was applied to estimate microbial concentrations from microscope well slides. The use of microscopy/Dirichlet tessellation to quantify biomass was illustrated with two species of morphologically distinct cyanobacteria (Microcystis aeruginosa and Anabaena flos aquae), and validated empirically by comparison with chlorophyll a and Coulter count analyses. Biomass estimates obtained by microscopy/Dirichlet tessellation were significantly correlated with the results obtained from chlorophyll a and Coulter analyses.