Note
Unialgal cultures, mixtures of two phytoplankton cultures, and natural seawater samples were elutriated to determine the feasibility of this technique for collecting fractions of different cell cycle phases, separating two phytoplankton species, and concentrating cells from dilute samples. Elutriation resulted in the separation of a culture of Dunaliella tertiolecta and Phaeodactylum tricornutum into homogeneous fractions of each species. Cells in the natural seawater sample were concentrated by nearly 2 orders of magnitude. Centrifugal elutriation provides an alternative cell separation and concentration technique when large numbers of cells are required.