PubMed · 2026-05-14
Duckweed — the tiny floating plants that blanket ponds — can feed on both sunlight and dissolved organic carbon simultaneously, a strategy called mixotrophy. This review compiles evidence that this dual feeding mode gives duckweed a growth advantage greater than either strategy alone, with implications for water cleanup and sustainable protein production.
Duckweed (family Lemnaceae) can simultaneously use sunlight for photosynthesis and absorb exogenous organic carbon from water, a combined strategy called mixotrophy that produces synergistic — not merely additive — growth benefits.
Duckweed's exceptionally rapid growth rate, high protein content, and demonstrated phytoremediation capacity make it a leading candidate for biotechnological applications in water cleanup, bioenergy, and sustainable food production.
Duckweed offers research advantages over microalgae models because it is a clonal, genomically tractable flowering plant with direct environmental exchange, allowing findings to be more readily connected to higher-plant physiology.
