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Cyanobacteria are found almost everywhere. Sea spray containing marine microorganisms, including cyanobacteria, can be swept high into the atmosphere where they become aeroplankton, and can travel the globe before falling back to earth. [22] Cyanobacteria are a very large and diverse phylum of photosynthetic prokaryotes. [23]
Cyanobacteria are a phylum of bacteria that obtain their energy through the process of photosynthesis. [1] [2] Although cyanobacteria metabolize photoautotrophically like eukaryotic plants, they have prokaryotic cell structure. Cyanophages can be found in both freshwater and marine environments. [3]
Cyanobacteria often live in colonial aggregates that can take a multitude of forms. [3] Of particular interest among the many species of cyanobacteria are those that live colonially in elongate hair-like structures, known as trichomes. These filamentous species can contain hundreds to thousands of cells. [3]
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]
Cyanobacteria found in sedimentary rocks indicate that bacterial life began on Earth during the Precambrian age. Fossilized cyanobacteria are commonly found in rocks that date back to Mesoproterozoic. [1] Cyanobacteria are photoautotrophs in nature; they convert carbon dioxide and sunlight into food and energy via photosynthesis.
Cyanobacteria can be concerning because some species are capable of producing harmful toxins that may cause illnesses after exposure, depending on the type of toxin and the method of exposure.
Aphanizomenon flos-aquae is a diverse group of cyanobacteria with both toxic and non-toxic [1] [2] strains found in brackish and freshwater environments globally, including the Baltic Sea and the Great Lakes. Recent genome sequencing efforts have identified 18 distinct varieties [3] of Aphanizomenon flos-aquae, revealing its genetic complexity.
Some genes specific to the cyanobacteria group are also absent from the A. thalassa genome despite being an evolutionary descendant of this group. [4] With the inability to fix their own carbon, A. thalassa are obligate symbionts that have been found within photosynthetic picoeukaryote algae. [4]