Algae Is A Life Saver With A Long History
August 20, 2019 at 6:07 p.m.
Algae—a life saver!
If you own a swimming pool or are acquainted with the sea you no doubt are familiar with algae. These simple plants are diverse and found almost anywhere on the planet, ranging from microscopic to large seaweeds. Some giant kelp can grow to more than 100 feet in length. Microalgae include both cyanobacteria (similar to bacteria, and formerly called blue-green algae) as well as green, brown and red algae. Most algae grow through photosynthesis—by converting sunlight, carbon dioxide and a few nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorous, into material known as biomass. Algae play an important role in many ecosystems, including providing the foundation for the aquatic food chains supporting all fisheries in the oceans and inland, as well as producing about 70 percent of all the air we breath. They work their combinatorial magic, by burping oxygen.
Take a breath: most of the oxygen we inhale is made by algae. What is waste to them is priceless to all respiring animals. Without algae, we would gasp for air. There is no shortage of algae. The oceans are blanketed in a dense but invisible six-hundred-foot-thick layer of them. There are more algae in the oceans than there are stars in all the galaxies in the universe. Swallow a single drop of seawater, and you could easily down several thousand of these unseen beings. According to Ruth Kassinger, in her new book Slime, they are the essential food of the microscopic grazing animals at the bottom of the marine food chain. If all algae died tomorrow, then all familiar aquatic life—from tiny krill to whales—would quickly starve. In fact, if algae hadn’t evolved more than 3 billion years ago and oxygenated the atmosphere, multicellular creatures would never have graced the oceans. It was a species of green algae that, 500 million years ago, acclimated to life on land and evolved into all of Earth’s plants. Without plants to eat, the first marine animals that wriggled out of the water 360 million years ago would never have survived or continued to evolve and diversify into all the land-living creatures we know today, including us. If, several million years ago, our ancestor hominins hadn’t had access to fish and other algae-eating aquatic life—and thus to certain key nutrients—we would never have evolved our outsize brains.
Algae are usually thought of as plant like as there is a similarity. Each produces the same storage compounds to act as defense strategies against predators and parasites. Plants, however, show a high degree of differentiation, with roots, leaves, stems, and vascular tissues. Algae do not have any of these features, even though many seaweeds are plant-like in appearance and some of them show specialization and differentiation of their vegetative cells. However, they do not form embryos, their reproductive structures consist of cells that are all potentially fertile and lack sterile cells covering or protecting them. Moreover, algae occur in dissimilar forms such as microscopic single cells, macroscopic multicellular loose or filmy conglomerations, matted or branched colonies, or more complex leafy or blade forms, which contrast strongly with uniformity in vascular plants.
The term algae refers to macroalgae and a highly diversified group of microorganisms known as microalgae. Estimates of the number of living algae varies from 30,000 to more than 1 million species, but most of the reliable estimates refer to the numbers given in AlgaeBase. This program currently documents 32,260 species of organisms generally regarded as algae of an estimated 43,918 described species of algae. There may be more than 28,500 species waiting for description.
One type of algae that Floridians are acquainted with is Karenia brevis. This common marine microorganism blooms when exposed to sunlight, warm water and phosphorus or nitrates. The result is a toxic sludge known as red tide, which depletes oxygen in water, poisons shellfish and emits a foul vapor strong enough to irritate the lungs. Its frequency and severity have worsened thanks to pollution and rising water temperatures. Red tides started appearing everywhere as early as the late 18th century and early 19th centuries. The worst red tide invasion occurred in 1946-47. It started in Naples, Florida and spread all the way to Sarasota, hanging around for18 months destroying the fishing industry and making life unbearable for residents. A 35 mile long stretch was so thick with rotting fish carcasses that the government dispatched Navy warships to try to break up the mass. A similar event occurred in 2017-8, covering 145 miles of Floridian coastline.
Just recently, scientists, using satellite imaging, have discovered a record breaking belt of brown algae stretching from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. It may weigh more than 20 million tons and provide habitat for turtles, crabs and birds and producing oxygen for the environment. On the other hand, this seaweed makes it hard for other marine species to move and breathe. There is still much to learn about algae.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, touches on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
Algae—a life saver!
If you own a swimming pool or are acquainted with the sea you no doubt are familiar with algae. These simple plants are diverse and found almost anywhere on the planet, ranging from microscopic to large seaweeds. Some giant kelp can grow to more than 100 feet in length. Microalgae include both cyanobacteria (similar to bacteria, and formerly called blue-green algae) as well as green, brown and red algae. Most algae grow through photosynthesis—by converting sunlight, carbon dioxide and a few nutrients, including nitrogen and phosphorous, into material known as biomass. Algae play an important role in many ecosystems, including providing the foundation for the aquatic food chains supporting all fisheries in the oceans and inland, as well as producing about 70 percent of all the air we breath. They work their combinatorial magic, by burping oxygen.
Take a breath: most of the oxygen we inhale is made by algae. What is waste to them is priceless to all respiring animals. Without algae, we would gasp for air. There is no shortage of algae. The oceans are blanketed in a dense but invisible six-hundred-foot-thick layer of them. There are more algae in the oceans than there are stars in all the galaxies in the universe. Swallow a single drop of seawater, and you could easily down several thousand of these unseen beings. According to Ruth Kassinger, in her new book Slime, they are the essential food of the microscopic grazing animals at the bottom of the marine food chain. If all algae died tomorrow, then all familiar aquatic life—from tiny krill to whales—would quickly starve. In fact, if algae hadn’t evolved more than 3 billion years ago and oxygenated the atmosphere, multicellular creatures would never have graced the oceans. It was a species of green algae that, 500 million years ago, acclimated to life on land and evolved into all of Earth’s plants. Without plants to eat, the first marine animals that wriggled out of the water 360 million years ago would never have survived or continued to evolve and diversify into all the land-living creatures we know today, including us. If, several million years ago, our ancestor hominins hadn’t had access to fish and other algae-eating aquatic life—and thus to certain key nutrients—we would never have evolved our outsize brains.
Algae are usually thought of as plant like as there is a similarity. Each produces the same storage compounds to act as defense strategies against predators and parasites. Plants, however, show a high degree of differentiation, with roots, leaves, stems, and vascular tissues. Algae do not have any of these features, even though many seaweeds are plant-like in appearance and some of them show specialization and differentiation of their vegetative cells. However, they do not form embryos, their reproductive structures consist of cells that are all potentially fertile and lack sterile cells covering or protecting them. Moreover, algae occur in dissimilar forms such as microscopic single cells, macroscopic multicellular loose or filmy conglomerations, matted or branched colonies, or more complex leafy or blade forms, which contrast strongly with uniformity in vascular plants.
The term algae refers to macroalgae and a highly diversified group of microorganisms known as microalgae. Estimates of the number of living algae varies from 30,000 to more than 1 million species, but most of the reliable estimates refer to the numbers given in AlgaeBase. This program currently documents 32,260 species of organisms generally regarded as algae of an estimated 43,918 described species of algae. There may be more than 28,500 species waiting for description.
One type of algae that Floridians are acquainted with is Karenia brevis. This common marine microorganism blooms when exposed to sunlight, warm water and phosphorus or nitrates. The result is a toxic sludge known as red tide, which depletes oxygen in water, poisons shellfish and emits a foul vapor strong enough to irritate the lungs. Its frequency and severity have worsened thanks to pollution and rising water temperatures. Red tides started appearing everywhere as early as the late 18th century and early 19th centuries. The worst red tide invasion occurred in 1946-47. It started in Naples, Florida and spread all the way to Sarasota, hanging around for18 months destroying the fishing industry and making life unbearable for residents. A 35 mile long stretch was so thick with rotting fish carcasses that the government dispatched Navy warships to try to break up the mass. A similar event occurred in 2017-8, covering 145 miles of Floridian coastline.
Just recently, scientists, using satellite imaging, have discovered a record breaking belt of brown algae stretching from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. It may weigh more than 20 million tons and provide habitat for turtles, crabs and birds and producing oxygen for the environment. On the other hand, this seaweed makes it hard for other marine species to move and breathe. There is still much to learn about algae.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, touches on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].