Populations Unit: Algal Blooms
NSF Grant DRL-1316782
• Kingdom Monera
• Blue-green algae
• Photosynthetic Major producers
– produce most of Earth’s oxygen
• Unicellular
• Prokaryotic cells
– No true nucleus
Hyella stella:
lives in Marine Limestone
 They are not plants
because they lack true
leaves, stems, and roots
 Most are
photosynthetic
 Include:





Bacillariophyta
Dinophyta
Chlorophyta
Rodophyta
Phaeophyta
Pneumatocysts
Thallus
Thallus is the complete body and all portions can photosynthesize
Kelp Forest, California
Common Sea Lettuce
Blades are leaf-like portions
- increase surface area
- no veins
- Some algae have pneumatocysts, or gas-filled bladders allowing the
seaweed to stay at the surface
Cool Fact: some pneumatocysts contain carbon monoxide (CO)
Macrocystis pyrifera
Giant Kelp
- Some algae have a stem-like structure called a stipe
Giant Kelp
- in some seaweeds holdfasts are structures that secure the thallus to the bottom
2
blades
Several sea palms at the Pillar Point
Marine Reserve. Half Moon Bay, San
Mateo, California
3
stipe
1
holdfasts
Question time:
List the name of the part
and it’s function
1.
2.
3.
* Glaaucophyta = freshwater
*Xanthophyta = almost all freshwater
• Red algae
• Multicellular
• Important to coral reefs because it helps
cement the reef together
• Phycoerythrins- red pigment which allows red
algae to live deeper in the water
Chelidonura Sea Slug
Most abundant and widespread macro-algae with over 4,000 species
Examples: Irish Moss (left) and Gigartina (right)
• Multicellular
• Green algae and land plants have chlorophyll a&b
• Chlorophyll a- absorbs different colors of light and used for
photosynthesis
• Chlorophyll b- helps to capture light
• Cell walls made of cellulose
• only 10% of all 6,000-7,000
species are marine
• some species are
endophytes, or plants that live
within the tissues of other
plants
Sea Lettuce (Ulva Lectuca)
Cladophora sericea-Invasive species on
West Maui, Hawai’i
• Unicellular, Golden
colored, some freefloating others colonial
• Most productive
phytoplankton
• Cell walls made of silica
• Coccolithophores – often used to
study climate change, ocean
acidification, & eutrophication
• Class Bacillariophyta = diatoms
• Diatom bloom- sudden increase
of diatoms
– usually during summer when there
is an increase in nutrients
• Brown algae varies from olive-green to dark-brown
in color due to yellow pigments
• Multicellular
• Holdfast- anchors the plants
• Blades (like leaves)
• Pneumatocyst: gas-filled bladders
Kelp is the most complex group of brown algae
• harvested for food in some parts of the world
• can be 100 m long and grow to 50 cm per day
• lots of pneumatocysts
• form kelp beds or kelp forests in colder waters
of the N. and S. Pacific
Diver in Kelp forest at Ship Rock
Catalina Island, California
Kelp harvester in California
• Nuestonic community (organisms
that float on top of the water)
• Drifting rafts of sargassum (brown
algae)
• Found in the North Atlantic Ocean
Question
time:
What are
the biotic
and abiotic
factors that
would
affect this
area?
• Also Called
Dinoflagellates
• Unicellular
• Use flagella to
swim
• 2nd most
productive
group of primary
producers
Noctiluca and Symbodinium
• Algae Blooms
– Toxins: Ciguatera:
• causes seafood
poisoning (red snapper,
grouper)
– HABs (Harmful Algae
Blooms) cause Red Tide
• Overabundance of algae
that is harmful to the marine
organisms, humans, a
environment.
• the production and emission of light by a living organism as
the result of a chemical reaction during which chemical
energy is converted to light energy.
• Found in the phylum dinophyta (Pyrrophyta)
• Ninety percent of deep-sea marine life is estimated to
produce bioluminescence in one form or another.
Bioluminescent algae Noctiluca Scintillans at Camp Cooinda on the Gippsland Lakes
• Oxygen production (90%)
• Habitat
• Food
– Marine Organisms
– Human
• Gelatin (thickening agent)
– Toothpaste
• Sushi