Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The species Euglena gracilis has been used extensively in the laboratory as a model organism. [4] Most species of Euglena have photosynthesizing chloroplasts within the body of the cell, which enable them to feed by autotrophy, like plants. However, they can also take nourishment heterotrophically, like animals.
Euglena viridis is a freshwater, single cell, mixotroph microalgae bearing a secondary chloroplast. [1] Their chloroplast is bounded by three layers of membrane without a nucleomorph . [ 2 ] Normally, it is 40–65 μm long, slightly bigger than other well-known Euglena species: Euglena gracilis .
Euglenales consists mostly of freshwater organisms, in contrast to its sister Eutreptiales which is generally marine. Cells have two flagella, but only one is emergent; the other is very short and does not emerge from the cell, so cells appear to have only one flagellum. [3]
Euglena gracilis is a freshwater species of single-celled alga in the genus Euglena. It has secondary chloroplasts , and is a mixotroph able to feed by photosynthesis or phagocytosis . It has a highly flexible cell surface, allowing it to change shape from a thin cell up to 100 μm long to a sphere of approximately 20 μm.
Chloroplasts are present in most species, except for a few species that have lost them. [1] Chloroplasts are diverse in this family, with the size, shape, number, and presence of pyrenoids being important identifying characteristics.
Although they belong to the class Euglenoidea, and are morphologically similar to the green Euglena, Peranema have no chloroplasts, and do not conduct autotrophy. Instead, they capture live prey, such as yeast, bacteria and other flagellates, consuming them with the help of a rigid feeding apparatus called a "rod-organ."
A number of species exists where a chloroplast's absence was formerly marked with separate genera such as Astasia (colourless Euglena) and Hyalophacus (colourless Phacus). Due to the lack of a developed cytostome, these forms feed exclusively by osmotrophic absorption.
Euglena sanguinea is a species of the genus Euglena.The red colour is due to the presence of astaxanthin and the cells can be populous enough to colour water red. The pigment is used to protect the chloroplasts from light that is too intense, but as the light levels change the cells can take on a green colour as the red pigment is moved to the centre of the cells.