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Cyanobacteria can interfere with water treatment in various ways, primarily by plugging filters (often large beds of sand and similar media) and by producing cyanotoxins, which have the potential to cause serious illness if consumed. Consequences may also lie within fisheries and waste management practices.
Blooming cyanobacteria can produce cyanotoxins in such concentrations that they can poison and even kill animals and humans. Cyanotoxins can also accumulate in other animals such as fish and shellfish, and cause poisonings such as shellfish poisoning. Some of the most powerful natural poisons known are cyanotoxins.
The biosynthesis of saxitoxin is well-defined in cyanobacteria, while within dinoflagellates it remains mostly unknown. Cyanobacterial saxitoxin biosynthesis has been studied in radioisotope tracing experiments, and turns out to be highly complex, involving many steps, enzymes and chemical reactions.
Nostoc, also known as star jelly, troll's butter, spit of moon, fallen star, witch's butter (not to be confused with the fungi commonly known as witches' butter), and witch's jelly, is the most common genus of cyanobacteria found in a variety of both aquatic and terrestrial environments that may form colonies composed of filaments of moniliform cells in a gelatinous sheath of polysaccharides. [1]
Lyngbya is a genus of cyanobacteria, unicellular autotrophs that form the basis of the oceanic food chain. As a result of recent genetic analyses, several new genera were erected from this genus: e.g., Moorea, [2] Limnoraphis, [3] Okeania, [4] Microseira, [5] and Dapis. [6] Lyngbya species form long, unbranching filaments inside a rigid ...
Although colloquially called algae, blue-green algae (BGA) is a type of cyanobacteria. It can present with several different colors. While there are many BGA species, the most common type found in aquaria is referred to as "slime algae". Infestations may attach to aquarium glass and substrates. It may commonly be of the genus Oscillatoria. [21]
Blooms cause problems ecologically, economically, and in freshwater systems, adversely affect the quality of drinking water. [45] Spikes in cyanobacteria populations are usually brought on by nutrient increases due to run-off from fertilizers, dust, and sewage. [46] By killing hosts, cyanophages may help restore ecosystems to their natural balance.
Marine cyanobacteria are to date the smallest known photosynthetic organisms; Prochlorococcus is the smallest at just 0.5 to 0.7 micrometres in diameter. [11] [2] The coccoid shaped cells are non-motile and free-living. Their small size and large surface-area-to-volume ratio, gives them an advantage in nutrient-poor water.