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Aquatic photosynthesis is the occurrence of photosynthesis in the aquatic environment, which includes the freshwater environment and the marine (saltwater) environment. Organisms that perform photosynthesis in the aquatic environment include but are not limited to plants , algae , cyanobacteria , [ 1 ] coral , [ 2 ] phytoplankton (also known as ...
Photosynthesis (/ ˌ f oʊ t ə ˈ s ɪ n θ ə s ɪ s / FOH-tə-SINTH-ə-sis) [1] is a system of biological processes by which photosynthetic organisms, such as most plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, convert light energy, typically from sunlight, into the chemical energy necessary to fuel their metabolism.
Streptophyte algae include all green algae, and are the only photosynthetic eukaryotes from which the macroscopic land flora evolved (red lines). That said, throughout the course of evolution, algae from various other lineages have colonized land (yellow lines) —but also streptophyte algae have continuously and independently made the wet to ...
Algae lack the various structures that characterize plants (which evolved from freshwater green algae), such as the phyllids (leaf-like structures) and rhizoids of bryophytes (non-vascular plants), and the roots, leaves and other xylemic/phloemic organs found in tracheophytes (vascular plants).
All plants and all photosynthetic algae contain chloroplasts, which produce NADPH and ATP by the mechanisms described above. In essence, the same transmembrane structures are also found in cyanobacteria. Unlike plants and algae, cyanobacteria are prokaryotes.
The photosynthetic system of brown algae is made of a P700 complex containing chlorophyll a. Their plastids also contain chlorophyll c and carotenoids (the most widespread of those being fucoxanthin). [53] Brown algae produce a specific type of tannin called phlorotannins in higher amounts than red algae do.
Microalgae, capable of performing photosynthesis, are important for life on earth; they produce approximately half of the atmospheric oxygen [2] and use the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to grow photoautotrophically. "Marine photosynthesis is dominated by microalgae, which together with cyanobacteria, are collectively called phytoplankton."
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.