Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Cyanobacteria cultured in specific media: Cyanobacteria can be helpful in agriculture as they have the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen in soil. The unicellular cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC6803 was the third prokaryote and first photosynthetic organism whose genome was completely sequenced. [241]
Cyanobacteria are ubiquitous, finding habitats in most water bodies and in extreme environments such as the polar regions, deserts, brine lakes and hot springs. [ 60 ] [ 61 ] [ 62 ] They have also evolved surprisingly complex collective behaviours that lie at the boundary between single-celled and multicellular life.
Cyanobacteria produce potent toxins, but they also produce helpful bioactive compounds, including substances with antitumour, antiviral, anticancer, antibiotic and antifungal activity, UV protectants and specific inhibitors of enzymes.
Nostoc, also known as star jelly, troll's butter, spit of moon, fallen star, witch's butter (not to be confused with the fungi commonly known as witches' butter), and witch's jelly, is the most common genus of cyanobacteria found in a variety of both aquatic and terrestrial environments that may form colonies composed of filaments of moniliform cells in a gelatinous sheath of polysaccharides. [1]
Cyanobacteria are photosynthetic prokaryotes that have existed on Earth for an estimated 2.7 billion years. The ability of cyanobacteria to produce oxygen initiated the transition from a planet consisting of high levels of carbon dioxide and little oxygen, to what has been called the Great Oxygenation Event where large amounts of oxygen gas were produced. [4]
Scytonema is a genus of photosynthetic cyanobacteria that contains over 100 species. It grows in filaments that form dark mats. It grows in filaments that form dark mats. Many species are aquatic and are either free-floating or grow attached to a submerged substrate, while others species grow on terrestrial rocks, wood, soil, or plants.
In mosses, cyanobacteria are major nitrogen fixers and grow mostly epiphytically, aside from two species of Sphagnum which protect the cyanobiont from an acidic-bog environment. [34] In terrestrial Arctic environments, cyanobionts are the primary supplier of nitrogen to the ecosystem whether free-living or epiphytic with mosses. [ 35 ]
Marine cyanobacteria are to date the smallest known photosynthetic organisms; Prochlorococcus is the smallest at just 0.5 to 0.7 micrometres in diameter. [11] [2] The coccoid shaped cells are non-motile and free-living. Their small size and large surface-area-to-volume ratio, gives them an advantage in nutrient-poor water.