Algae

When we think of animals and plants, we have a pretty good way of dividing them into two distinct groups: one converts sunlight into energy and the other has to eat food to make its energy. Well, those dividing lines come crashing down with the discovery of a sea slug …

Pyrrophyta or fire algae is a division of unicellular algae that has a yellow brown color, and has two different flagella which are ribbon-shaped. It contains some pigments (chlorophyll-a, chlorophyll-b, c1, c2 and fucoxanthin) that can photosynthesize. Early botanists classified dinoflagellates as a separate division of algae, which they named …

Batch culture: A close system culture of algae in which there will be no supply or withdrawal of culture medium and biomass into or out of the culture vessel. In this type of culture the amount of medium and inoculum are known and specific. a. Lag phase It is the …

Culture of algae in laboratory is not only important for knowing the details of the external morphology and reproduction in a particular algae or algal group, it is equally important to know the details of algal life-histories, taxonomy, physiology, biochemistry, genetics and also its ultra-structure. Most of  the development in …

The branch Phycology has come into existence in 1753 when Carolus Linnaeus first discovered four genera namely Fucus, Conferra, Chara and Ulva. Exactly after 200 years in 1953, Prof. A. K. M. Nurul Islam started to work on algal taxonomy in the Department of Botany, University of Dhaka and devoted …

Algae is a group of photosynthetic organisms found in both marine and freshwater habitats. As these organisms have a short duplication time, they are considered among one of the fastest growing creatures. They have efficient pathways to fix atmospheric carbon dioxide and to efficiently utilize the available nutrients to convert …

Algae is a hetergenous group of organisms containing members having chlorphyll ‘a’ as their primary photosynthetic pigments. These green chlorophyll molecules along with some accessory pigments are contained generally in a membrane bound packet like structure called chloroplast within the algal body. In some members, chloroplast is absent though; such …

Development of algal vegetative and reproductive part in multicellular algae by cell division resulting in complex and large structure is known as algal growth. But in case of unicellular algae simple increase in size in the body results in growth of the cell. E.g. Chlamydomonas (unicellular algae). Basically there are …

The transformation of green, photosynthetic algae from their original simple aquatic life to advanced terrestrial plants was a key event in the history of planet Earth, ranking in significance with the origin of photosynthesis. It is quite obvious from phylogenetic, molecular and morphological studies that higher plants are derived from …

Phycology or algology is the study of algae. The word ‘Phycology’ is derived from the Greek word ‘Phykos’ meaning seaweed. The algae are thallophytes (plants lacking roots, stems and leaves) that have chlorophyll as their primary photosynthetic pigment and lack a sterile covering of cells around their reproductive cells or …