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Spirogyra (common names include water silk, mermaid's tresses, and blanket weed) is a genus of filamentous charophyte green algae of the order Zygnematales, named for the helical or spiral arrangement of the chloroplasts that is characteristic of the genus. Spirogyra species, of which there are more than 500, are commonly found in freshwater ...
Members of the Zygnematophyceae are common in nearly all freshwater habitats, particularly filamentous genera such as Spirogyra and Mougeotia. Some Spirogyra species can tolerate disturbed habitats. On the other hand, desmids (the Desmidiales) often prefer bogs, peatlands, and lakes. [17]
The Zygnematales (Greek: ζυγός (zygós) and νῆμα (nḗma) (), νήματος (nḗmatos) ()), also called the Conjugatales, [1] are an order of green algae, [2] comprising several thousand different species in two families.
The Zygnemataceae are cosmopolitan, but though all generally occur in the same types of habitats, Mougeotia, Spirogyra, and Zygnema are by far the most common; in one study across North America, [3] 95% of the Zygnemataceae collected were in these three genera. Classification and identification is primarily by the morphology of the conjugation ...
Haploid algal cells (containing only one copy of their DNA) can fuse with other haploid cells to form diploid zygotes. When filamentous algae do this, they form bridges between cells, and leave empty cell walls behind that can be easily distinguished under the light microscope. This process is called conjugation and occurs for example in Spirogyra.
Spirogyra measures approximately 32–115 μm in width. Each cell contains 2–10 chloroplasts in a ribbon, in contrast to the closely related genus Spirogyra , which has chloroplasts in a coil. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Molecular phylogenetic studies have placed Sirogonium inside a clade consisting of Spirogyra species; in other words, Spirogyra is ...
Volvox colony: 1) Chlamydomonas-like cell, 2) Daughter colony, 3) Cytoplasmic bridges, 4) Intercellular gel, 5) Reproductive cell, 6) Somatic cell.. Volvox is a polyphyletic genus in the volvocine green algae clade. [2]
Unlike Spirogyra the filaments of Cladophora branch and do not undergo conjugation. There are two multicellular stages in its life cycle – a haploid gametophyte and a diploid sporophyte – which look highly similar. The only way to tell the two stages apart is to either count their chromosomes, or examine their offspring.