Saturday, April 4, 2009

Aquanautical microbiota: Green Algae


Spirogyra reproduction, reminds one of double helix DNA, chromosome replication


Dancing spheres: volvox rotates, oscillates

Volvox reproduction, note the triangulation of cytoplasm threads, geodesic structure



volvox A large sphere colony with daughter sphere colonies containing small granddaughter colonies. Both male and female colonies form inside the equator of the parent colony. Volvoxes are hollow spheres of independent cells that each have an eye spot, the colony develops a light-polarity, where half of the colony has larger eye spots, making a supercell eyeball of sorts. Click the link to find out more. volvox wikipedia
nuther volvox tale


Pediastrum algae, a flat disk star


These outstanding photos are from this site: The Micropolitan Museum

Hydrodictyon reticulatum, Hexa-penta Water net algae, from: Hydrodictyon, Wikipedia


Protists: dinoflagellate plant/animal (planimal?) in toxic red tide, endosymbiont coral bleaching, some photosynthesizers and some with eyes (retina), have minicircles of 12 genes.
http://madlabrat.blogspot.com/2009/10/protists-and-their-plastids.html

Marimo Moss balls (Chladophora)

from cell to super-cell organism to super-organism society: colonial ants
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Nutrition: Seaweed gardens

Naturally growing seaweeds are an important source of food, especially in Asia. They provide many vitamins including: A, B1, B2, B6, niacin and C, and are rich in iodine, potassium, iron, magnesium and calcium.[50] In addition commercially cultivated microalgae, including both Algae and Cyanobacteria, are marketed as nutritional supplements, such as Spirulina,[51] Chlorella and the Vitamin-C supplement, Dunaliella, high in beta-carotene.

Algae are national foods of many nations: China consumes more than 70 species, including fat choy, a cyanobacterium considered a vegetable; Japan, over 20 species;[52] Ireland, dulse; Chile, cochayuyo.[53] Laver is used to make "laver bread" in Wales where it is known as bara lawr; in Korea, gim; in Japan, nori and aonori. It is also used along the west coast of North America from California to British Columbia, in Hawaii and by the Māori of New Zealand. Sea lettuce and badderlocks are a salad ingredient in Scotland, Ireland, Greenland and Iceland.
Dulse, a food.

The oils from some Algae have high levels of unsaturated fatty acids. For example, Parietochloris incisa is very high in arachidonic acid, where it reaches up to 47% of the triglyceride pool.[54] Some varieties of Algae favored by vegetarianism and veganism contain the long-chain, essential omega-3 fatty acids, Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), in addition to vitamin B12. The vitamin B12 in algae is not biologically active. Fish oil contains the omega-3 fatty acids, but the original source is algae, which are eaten by marine life such as copepods and are passed up the food chain.[55] wikipedia: algae nutrition

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