cyanobacteria

Examples of cyanobacteria in the following topics:

• Cyanobacteria

  • Cyanobacteria can be found in almost every terrestrial and aquatic habitat .
  • Cyanobacteria include unicellular and colonial species.
  • In water columns some cyanobacteria float by forming gas vesicles, like in archaea.
  • Some cyanobacteria produce toxins, called cyanotoxins.
  • Cyanobacteria cultured in specific media.

• Oxygenic Photosynthesis

  • In plants, algae and cyanobacteria, photosynthesis releases oxygen .
  • Although there are some differences between oxygenic photosynthesis in plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, the overall process is quite similar in these organisms.
  • In plants, algae and cyanobacteria, photosynthesis releases oxygen.
  • Although there are some differences between oxygenic photosynthesis in plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, the overall process is quite similar in these organisms.

• Edible Algae

  • They inherited their photosynthetic apparatus from cyanobacteria.
  • Cyanobacteria are sometimes called blue-green algae but they are prokaryotic organisms and are not true algae.
  • Cultivated microalgae and cyanobacteria such as Spirulina and Chlorella are sold as nutritional supplements.

• Carboxysomes

  • Carboxysomes are intracellular structures found in many autotrophic bacteria, including Cyanobacteria, Knallgasbacteria, Nitroso- and Nitrobacteria.
  • These organelles are found in all cyanobacteria and many chemotrophic bacteria that fix carbon dioxide.
  • In the early 1960s, similar polyhedral objects were observed in other cyanobacteria.

• The Evolution of Plastids

  • Plastids may derive from cyanobacteria engulfed via endosymbiosis by early eukaryotes, giving cells the ability to conduct photosynthesis.
  • Like mitochondria, plastids appear to have a primary endosymbiotic origin, but differ in that they derive from cyanobacteria rather than alpha-proteobacteria.
  • Cyanobacteria are a group of photosynthetic bacteria with all the conventional structures of prokaryotes.
  • In addition to thylakoids, chloroplasts found in eukaryotes have a circular DNA chromosome and ribosomes similar to those of cyanobacteria.
  • (a) Red algae and (b) green algae (visualized by light microscopy) share similar DNA sequences with photosynthetic cyanobacteria.

• The Purpose and Process of Photosynthesis

  • Plants, algae, and a group of bacteria called cyanobacteria are the only organisms capable of performing photosynthesis.
  • Photoautotrophs, including (a) plants, (b) algae, and (c) cyanobacteria, synthesize their organic compounds via photosynthesis using sunlight as an energy source.
  • Cyanobacteria and planktonic algae can grow over enormous areas in water, at times completely covering the surface.

• Endosymbiosis and the Evolution of Eukaryotes

  • Mereschkowski was familiar with work by botanist Andreas Schimper, who had observed in 1883 that the division of chloroplasts in green plants closely resembled that of free-living cyanobacteria.
  • More detailed electron microscopic comparisons between cyanobacteria and chloroplasts combined with the discovery that plastids (organelles associated with photosynthesis) and mitochondria contain their own DNA led to a resurrection of the idea in the 1960s.
  • These cyanobacteria have become chloroplasts in modern plant cells.

• Prochlorophytes

  • These organisms lack red and blue Phycobilin pigments and have staked thylakoids, both of which make them different from Cyanophyta (Cyanobacteria).
  • They morphologically resemble Cyanobacteria, formally known as Blue Green Algae.

• The Energetics of Chemolithotrophy

  • An example of this is chemolithotrophic bacteria in deep sea worms or plastids, which are organelles within plant cells that may have evolved from photolithotrophic cyanobacteria-like organisms.
  • An example of this is chemolithotrophic bacteria in deep sea worms or plastids, which are organelles within plant cells that may have evolved from photolithotrophic cyanobacteria-like organisms .

• The Nitrogen Cycle

  • Cyanobacteria live in most aquatic ecosystems where sunlight is present; they play a key role in nitrogen fixation.
  • Cyanobacteria are able to use inorganic sources of nitrogen to "fix" nitrogen.