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The name "cyanobacteria" (from Ancient Greek κύανος (kúanos) 'blue') refers to their bluish green color, [8] [9] which forms the basis of cyanobacteria's informal common name, blue-green algae, [10] [11] [12] although as prokaryotes they are not scientifically classified as algae.
Algae can be used to capture fertilizers in runoff from farms. When subsequently harvested, the enriched algae can be used as fertilizer. Aquaria and ponds can be filtered using algae, which absorb nutrients from the water in a device called an algae scrubber, also known as an algae turf scrubber. [130] [131]
Microalgae or microphytes are microscopic algae invisible to the naked eye. They are phytoplankton typically found in freshwater and marine systems, living in both the water column and sediment. [1] They are unicellular species which exist individually, or in chains or groups. Depending on the species, their sizes can range from a few ...
These evolutionary domains are called Bacteria and Archaea. [64] The ancestors of modern bacteria were unicellular microorganisms that were the first forms of life to appear on Earth, about 4 billion years ago. For about 3 billion years, most organisms were microscopic, and bacteria and archaea were the dominant forms of life.
Marine algae can be divided into six groups: green, red and brown algae, euglenophytes, dinoflagellates and diatoms. Dinoflagellates and diatoms are important components of marine algae and have their own sections below. Euglenophytes are a phylum of unicellular flagellates with only a few marine members. Not all algae are microscopic.
Although the term bacteria traditionally included all prokaryotes, the scientific classification changed after the discovery in the 1990s that prokaryotes consist of two very different groups of organisms that evolved from an ancient common ancestor. These evolutionary domains are called Bacteria and Archaea. [36]
Green algae are often classified with their embryophyte descendants in the green plant clade Viridiplantae (or Chlorobionta). Viridiplantae, together with red algae and glaucophyte algae, form the supergroup Primoplantae, also known as Archaeplastida or Plantae sensu lato. The ancestral green alga was a unicellular flagellate. [20]
The brown algae, including familiar seaweeds like wrack and kelp, are major autotrophs of the intertidal and subtidal marine habitats. [31] Some of the bacterivorous stramenopiles, such as Cafeteria, are common and widespread consumers of bacteria, and thus play a major role in recycling carbon and nutrients within microbial food webs. [32] [33]