Transcript Algae - UCO

Algae
Microbiology 2314
Characteristics
• Eukaryotic
• Mostly Photosynthetic
(Photoautotrophs)
• Require Moisture
• Microscopic and Macroscopic
• Accessory Pigments Give Color
• Lack Vascular Tissue
• Sexual and Asexual Reproduction
Red Algae
• Extremely Old / > 2 Billion
Years
• 4000 Species
• Tropical and Warm Waters
• No Flagella
• Phycoerythrin
• Irish Moss (Blanca Mange)
• Nori
• Coralline Algae
Red algae are red because of the
presence of the pigment
phycoerythrin; this pigment reflects
red light and absorbs blue light.
Because blue light penetrates water
to a greater depth than light of
longer wavelengths, these pigments
allow red algae to photosynthesize
and live at somewhat greater depths
than most other "algae".
These reef-building rhodophytes are called coralline algae, because they secrete a
hard shell of carbonate around themselves, in much the same way that corals do.
Agar is isolated from the red alga Gelidium
Because of their ability to secrete calcium
carbonate, calcareous red algae have a better
fossil record than many other groups of algal
protists. Most limestone deposits of reef origin
consist largely of the skeletons of coralline
algae, and because these are often associated
with petroleum deposits, there has been a great
deal of attention focused on these fossils.
Giant clam encrusted with coralline red algae.
When was the Irish Potato
Famine?
• Ireland Mid 1800’s
• >1,000,000 People Starved to
Death
• It began with a blight of the
potato crop that left acre upon
acre of Irish farmland covered
with black rot. As harvests across
Europe failed, the price of food
soared. Subsistence-level Irish
farmers found their food stores
rotting in their cellars, the crops
they relied on to pay the rent to
their British and Protestant
landlords destroyed.
Potato Blight
Facts
• Potatoes were the staple food
• Potatoes fed people, pigs, horses, cows,
chickens
• Men who did hard physical work often ate
4-5 pounds of potatoes per day and were
sometimes even paid in potatoes
• 35% of all agricultural soil was used for the
cultivation of potatoes
Facts
• The Blight did not start in Ireland but in the
United States.
• Flanders imported new potato strains for
America (they were diseased).
• Spread from Flanders to Belgium, to the
Netherlands, to England to Ireland.
• Ireland was hardest hit because the number
of families to feed in Ireland simply
outstripped the ability of the Irish soil to
feed them.
• The Irish population was hit by one of the
severest winters in European history.
• They also suffered from cholera epidemics,
spread by diarrhea and infections with Borrelia
and Rickettsia that were transmitted by the lice
that plagued the poor due to crowded living
conditions.
Peasants who ate the rotten
produce sickened and entire
villages were consumed
with cholera and typhus.
Parish priests desperate to
provide for their
congregations were forced
to forsake buying coffins in
order to feed starving
families, with the dead
going unburied or buried
only in the clothes they
wore when they died.
Salvaging tubers left
behind by pickers,
gleaners are generally
the poorest of the
poor.
Illustrated London
News
Disease Changes the Course of History.
Resulted in the historic Irish Immigration to America.
Irish Potato Famine
• 'Poor people could be seen crawling along the
ditches looking for herbs, and their mouths were
green from the leaves they were eating'. Wild
plants might be gathered so intensively that little
or nothing was left unpicked. For example, a
contemporary newspaper reported that "There is
no nettle, or a bit of water cress to be found near
Dungarvan [County Waterford], as the starving
strangers [wandering beggars] consumed them all"
• In Irish coastal areas, fishing was rarely possible
during the harsh winters of the late 1840s and, in
any case, many fisher folk had pawned their nets
to buy provisions.
• Freshwater fish had become scarce - possibly due
to over-fishing. Forcing the hungry to scavenge
for grubs instead at the bottoms of streams.
• Nevertheless, much food could be gathered along
the shoreline. Seabirds were hunted and their eggs
collected along cliffs and occasionally on offshore
rocks and islands around the coast until those too
were gone.
• In December 1846, the inhabitants of Arranmore
Island, off the coast of Donegal, were reported to
be living on seaweed (algae).
Irish Moss Pudding
• Ingredients
• 1/2 cup of dried Irish moss (or one cup fresh, washed Irish
moss)
Three cups of milk
1/3 cup of sugar
1/8 tsp. of salt
1 tsp. of vanilla
• If using dried Irish moss, soak it in water for fifteen
minutes. Add the moss to three cups of milk in the top of a
double boiler and cook over boiling water for twenty-five
minutes. Strain the milk to remove the seaweed. Add
sugar, salt and vanilla. Stir the mixture and pour it into
individual molds. Chill and serve plain or with berries on
top.
A primary source of
income for the State of
Maine.
Agar Comes from Red Algae
Agar
Agar forms thermally reversible gels at low temperatures.
Used as a laxative, or as an inert carrier for drug products where
slow release of the drug is required).
Agar is used in bacteriology and mycology as a stiffening agent
in growth media.
Agar is used as a stabilizer for emulsions, and as a constituent of
cosmetic skin preparations, ointments, and lotions. It is used in
photographic film, shoe polish, dental impression molds, shaving
soaps, hand lotions, and in the tanning industry.
In food, agar is used as a substitute for gelatin, as an antidrying
agent in breads and pastry, and also for gelling and thickening
purposes. It is used in the manufacture of processed cheese,
mayonnaise, puddings, creams, and jellies and in the
manufacture of frozen dairy products.
Carrageenan
Carrageenan is similar to agar, but requires
higher concentrations to form gels.
Carrageenan is used for stabilizing chocolate,
milk, egg nog, ice cream, sherbets, instant
puddings, frostings, creamed soups, etc.
• Nori is a red algae that serves as a source of
food.
• High vitamin and protein content.
• Common in Japan
Diatoms
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Largest Group / Recent Group
Phylum Baciollariophya
Cool Marine Environments
Food Chains / Phytoplankton
Silica Shells or Frustules
Asexual and Sexual
Diatomaceous Earth
Centrate / Pennate
Largest Group of Algae
Fairly Recent Group: Very Important in Food Chains as Phytoplankton.
Diatomaceous Earth is a non-toxic, safe substance made up from
crushed fossils of freshwater organisms and marine life. Crushed to
a fine powder and observed through a microscope, the particles
resemble bits of broken glass. Deadly to any insect and completely
harmless to animals, fish, fowl or food.
• Diatomaceous Earth’s mode of
action for insect and parasite
control is strictly mechanical. The
microscopically sharp edges
contact the insect or parasite, and
pierce their protective coating, so
they soon dehydrate and die. The
larvae is affected in the same
way. This makes Diatomaceous
Earth an excellent and totally
natural control. It can be used as
a dust for fleas, lice and other
external pests by rubbing into the
coat of the animal.
Diatoms are found in Cool Marine Oceans.
They are composed of beautiful Silica Shells that
allow them to sparkle and shine upon viewing.
Pictured is a Pennate Freshwater Diatom
Centrate Diatoms are
Usually Found in
Marine Environments
Reproduction is Asexual for Several
Generations and then Sexual for Genetic
Variation.
Diatoms are often found with Desmids. Desmids are single-celled green
algae which can only be found in fresh water
Brown Algae
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Related to Diatoms
Rocky Coasts in Temperate Zones
Cold Open Seas
Multicellular Only
Brown / Fucoxanthin
Laminaria / Sargassum
Alginic Acid / Iodine
Phylum Phaeophyta
Young Group Closely
Related to Diatoms
Found in Rocky Coasts in
Temperate Zones or Open
Cold Seas
Multicellular Algae
Attain Great Size – 180 Feet Growing 2 Foot/Day
Cell Walls are Cellulose and Algenic Acid
Kelp bed located near Monterey, California
Structure of
Kelp
Kelp are the only
Algae known to have
internal tissue
differentiation into
conducting tissue.
Regardless of the type
of picture provided, you
should be able to label
each of the following:
Blade
Holdfast
Air Bladder
Stipe.
Where is the Sargasso Sea?
Early Science Wasn’t Always
Accurate and it Evolved Very
Slowly If at All
“Medical science, trying to advance, was
like a ship becalmed in the Sargasso Sea:
both the atmosphere about it and the
medium through which it must move
resisted all progress. Instead of reliance
upon observation, experience, experiment,
and thought, attention was turned toward
supernatural agencies.”
The Medieval Miracles of Healing
Columbus, as well as other seamen after him, also encountered a
harrowing stretch of ocean now known as the Sargasso Sea.
Ancient tales tell of sailboats stranded forever in a windless
expanse of water, surrounded by seaweed and the remnants of
other unfortunate vessels.
They may be small, but sea otters play a big ecological role in the
North Pacific. Sea otters feed on urchins, which in turn consume
kelp. Without otters, sea urchins destroy kelp forests that provide
vital habitat for many marine organisms.
Laminaria
Laminaria is an herbal
medicine used to induce
labor and abortion. The
dried stem of Laminaria
mechanically dilates the
cervical opening by
absorbing water and
swelling to several times its
original diameter. Laminaria
is a marine algae which
provides a good source of
protein, vitamins, minerals,
and carbohydrates. It only
contains small amounts of
fat.
Alginic Acid
• An insoluble colloidal acid in the form of a
polysaccharide that is abundant in the cell walls of
brown algae.
• Used in jam, jellies and marmalades and other
similar fruit spreads including low-calorie
products
• An ingredient in antacid preparations.
• Alginates are also used as a thickening
paste for colors in printing textiles, as a
hardener and thickener for joining
threads in weaving; the alginates may
subsequently be dissolved away, giving
special effects to the material. Other
uses include glazing and sizing paper,
special printers' inks, paints, cosmetics,
insecticides, and pharmaceutical
preparations.
• In the USA alginates are frequently
used as stabilizers in ice cream, giving
a smooth texture and body, and also as
a suspending agent in milk shakes.
Alginic
Acid
Dinoflagellates
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Warm Tropical Oceans
Unicellular / Green or Colorless / Biflagellate
Unusual Nucleus
Bioluminescent
Asexual Reproduction
Food Sources / Parasitic
Red Tide / Ciguatera
Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning
Important in Food Chains in Warm Tropical Oceans
Green (Green Shades) and Colorless Forms
Biflagellate
Chromosomes are Always Visible
Divers out for a night dive can sometimes see each
other just by the ghostly glowing outline of the
bioluminescent phytoplankton. Bioluminescent
dinoflagellates have even made boats visible against
the darkness!
As large as 2 mm or microscopic
Reproduction is typically asexual accomplished by splitting of the
body and new individuals remain for some time attached to the first
one as shown in the picture.
Photosynthetic Food Source
Forms Parasites on Fish and Some Protists
Like other phytoplankton, Dinoflagellates go through bloom cycles
when they are highly abundant and these blooms can be toxic
(commonly called red tides).
Toxicity
• Toxicity is due to the
secretion of a potent
neurotoxin called saxitoxin
(STX). During the advent of
red tides, secretion of
saxitoxin is especially
dangerous.
• Shellfish filter feed on the
contaminated water, and
although mollusks
themselves are apparently
unaffected by saxitoxin,
predators quickly develop
the poison symptoms.
• High concentrations of saxitoxin can cause
Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP), which is
dangerous to both humans and marine animals.
• Because of their higher trophic level, these
organisms are exposed to the most concentrated
levels of STX.
• PSP symptoms in humans include dizziness,
numbing of the lips and the neck, fatigue,
difficulty breathing and ultimately possible
respiratory paralysis.
• If artificial respiration is not performed, this
paralysis can cause death.
Red Tide
Red Tide Off Coast of California
What is our
first
recorded
mention of
Red Tide?
Exodus 7:20-25
"20 And Moses and Aaron did so, as the LORD commanded;
and he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that [were] in
the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his
servants; and all the waters that [were] in the river were
turned to blood. 21 And the fish that [was] in the river died;
and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the
water of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land
of Egypt. 22 And the magicians of Egypt did so with their
enchantments: and Pharaoh's heart was hardened, neither did
he hearken unto them; as the LORD had said. 23 And Pharaoh
turned and went into his house, neither did he set his heart to
this also. 24 And all the Egyptians digged round about the
river for water to drink; for they could not drink of the water of
the river. 25 And seven days were fulfilled, after that the
LORD had smitten the river."
• The first recorded case (Canada), occurred
in 1793, during Captain George
Vancouver's expedition to what is now
British Columbia, when John Carter, a
seaman, died from the effects of eating
mussels, presumably infected with toxic
algae. An eyewitness account of his death
occurs in the June 17 diary entry of the
expedition naturalist and surgeon, Archibald
Menzies.
Diary of Archibald Menzies for
June 17, 1793:
"Near the end of this arm they stopped to breakfast on the
morning of the 15th where the people finding some goodlooking mussels about the rocks and shores, boiled a quantity
of them...but unfortunately for them...these mussels proved to
be of deleterious quality as all those who had ate of them in
any quantity were, soon after they embarked, seized with
sickness, numbness about the mouth, face and arms, which
soon spread over the whole body accompanied with giddiness
and general lassitude; this was the case with three of the crew
of Discovery's boat.... One of them, John Carter, puked a
great deal, and found himself so much relieved by it that he
kept pulling on his oar until about one o'clock when the
whole party stopped to dine; but in attempting to get out of
the boat, he was so weak and giddy that he fell down, and he
and the other two were obliged to be carried to shore.
• On this, Mr. Johnstone instantly directed a fire to
be kindled and plenty of warm water to be got
ready as soon as possible, that each of them might
drink a sufficient quantity of it to operate as an
emetic...but, before it could be got ready, John
Carter became very ill...his pulse becoming
weaker and weaker, his mouth and lips appearing
black and his face and neck becoming much
swelled, together with faintness, general numbness
and tremor. Under these circumstances, he
gradually sank without much struggle and expired
just as soon as they were offering him the first
draught of warm water which he was unable to
swallow, and this sad affair happened within five
hours from the time of his eating the mussels."
Science Steps In
Saxitoxin is 1,000 times more toxic than the
potent nerve gas sarin.
• Saxitoxin was used by the CIA in the 1950's as suicide pills for its
agents.
• President Nixon ordered the painstakingly collected STX stock of
the CIA to be destroyed in concordance with the United Nations
Agreement on Biological Weapons. (Which was never done.)
• STX is the only natural toxin that, together with ricin, is on the
Schedule Chemical Warfare Agents list.
• Saxitoxin has been reportedly used as a biological weapon by
many countries against their enemies.
What is Saxitoxin's Mechanism of
Action?
• Saxitoxin is a potent neurotoxin that
specifically and selectively binds the
sodium channels in neural cells.
Thus, it physically occludes the
opening of the Na+ channel and
prevents any sodium molecules from
going in or out of the cell. Since
neuronal transmittance of impulses
and messages depends on the
depolarization of the inside of the
cell (a sudden and rapid influx of
Na+ ions into the cell), action
potentials are stopped, impairing a
variety of bodily functions, including
breathing.
• Don't drink the water. Don't swim in it, fish in
it, or even bathe in it. Rodney Barker's book,
And the Waters Turned to Blood details the
latest plague to visit our shores: Pfiesteria
piscicida, the "cell from hell," an aquatic
microorganism that causes sufferers to exhibit
symptoms similar to Alzheimers or multiple
sclerosis. As it follows the fortunes of Dr.
cavorite-lis
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tg/stores/d
communit
rate-item
cust-rec
just-say-no
true
m/justsay
JoAnn Burkholder, one of the
first scientists to
recognize the danger of Pfiesteria, Barker's
book reads like a cross between science fiction
and conspiracy theory: Dr. Burkholder
discovers that excessive pollution in the rivers
and coastal waters of the Southeastern United
States (Carolinas) causes a deadly
microorganism to breed like crazy. There is no
tidy ending to this story. Readers will be left
with the disturbing knowledge that fish are still
dying, fishermen are still getting sick, and the
potential for disaster in this latest scourge is
still unmeasured
Pfiesteria piscicida
It seems extreme to name a
dinoflagellate species piscicida,
or fish killer, but P. piscicida
produces a toxin that does in
fact kill fish.
This organism is heterotrophic
and, once the toxin has attacked
the surface of the fish, it feeds
on the disaggregated and
decomposing fish carcass.
• This species has been
implicated in a large
fraction of sudden fish
kills in North Carolina
estuarine waters in recent
years, particularly in
Pamlico Sound, which is
the second largest estuary
on the east coast of the
United States.
• Toxic algal blooms are on
the rise throughout the
world in recent years
Green Algae
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Second Largest Group
Most Diverse
Very Old
Freshwater / Moist Soil
Sea Lettuce
Single Cells / Filaments / Colonies / Thalli
Source of Oxygen / Food Chain
Volvox, Spirogyra
Freshwater / Volvox, Spirogyra
Marine / Sea Lettuce
Second Largest Group of Algae.
Most Diverse of all Algae
Found in Freshwater and on Land
Almost as Old as Red Algae
Variety of Forms Including Single Cells, Filaments,
Colonies, and Leaf-like Thalli
Can Store
Starch
Much in the
Same Way
as Plants
and also
may have
Cellulose in
Cell Walls
Scientists Conclude
that Higher Terrestrial
Plants Arose from a
Green Algal Ancestor.
Sea Lettuce is a Marine
Species that Lives in
Salt Water along the
Coast. It forms in
Sheets and Often
Obscures the Bottom.
Spirogyra (Freshwater Species)
Conjugation Tubes are a Means of Sexual Reproduction.
• Algae are simple plant organisms found in all wet
environments.
• They range in size from microscopic forms to the simple
macroscopic forms of 'pondweeds', and the large
seaweeds.
• All are interesting to study but microbiologists generally
agree that one of the most beautiful to behold is Volvox.
Volvox
Daughter Cells Visible Inside Volvox
• These are spherical colonies of green cells clinging
to a semi-transparent hollow ball of mucilage. A
single colony may consist of over 500 cells, each
one with a tiny pair of whip-like tails (flagella) and all cells undulating their flagella in
unison, propelling the colony through the water.
A single Volvox colony spins through the dark waters of a pond.
Daughter cells are just visible inside.
Other Algae
Anabaena with Heterocyst
Phylum Cyanobacteria
Sordaria
Perithecium
Sordaria Ascus
with Ascospores
Algae Can Be Beneficial
But It Can Also Be Hazardous!