Effects of atrazine concentration on growth rates of marine Synechococcus strains

Results from a laboratory study, testing the effect of atrazine concentration on the growth rate of marine Synechococcus strains. We aimed to identify an appropriate atrazine concentration to be used in experiments on marine Synechococcus strains that would act as a moderate stressor, reducing but not completely eliminating growth rate. We conducted an experiment on populations in monoculture, in a range of atrazine conditions, and measured the growth after one week. Using these two data points, we calculated their per-capita growth rate over this period and fitted a Monod equation describing the effect of atrazine concentration on their growth rate. On average, the atrazine concentration required to reduce the growth rate of the strains tested by half was approximately 0.34 mg/L. We provide the data necessary to fit these models as well as the fitted model parameters and a visualisation of the fitted models.