''Fucus spiralis'' is a species of seaweed, a

brown alga Brown algae (singular: alga), comprising the class Phaeophyceae, are a large group of multicellular algae, including many seaweeds located in colder waters within the Northern Hemisphere. Brown algae are the major seaweeds of the temperate an ...

(Heterokontophyta, Phaeophyceae), living on the

littoral The littoral zone or nearshore is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely inundated), to coastal a ...

shore of the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

coasts of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

and North America. It has the common names of spiral wrack and flat wrack.

Description

''Fucus spiralis'' is olive brown in colour and similar to ''

Fucus vesiculosus ''Fucus vesiculosus'', known by the common names bladder wrack, black tang, rockweed, sea grapes, bladder fucus, sea oak, cut weed, dyers fucus, red fucus and rock wrack, is a seaweed found on the coasts of the North Sea, the western Baltic Se ...

'' and ''

Fucus serratus ''Fucus serratus'' is a seaweed of the north Atlantic Ocean, known as toothed wrack or serrated wrack. Description and reproduction ''Fucus serratus'' is a robust alga, olive-brown in colour and similar to '' Fucus vesiculosus'' and ''Fucus spi ...

''. It grows to about 30 cm long and branches somewhat irregularly dichotomous and is attached, generally to rock, by a discoid holdfast. The flattened blade has a distinct mid-rib and is usually spirally twisted without a serrated edge, as in ''Fucus serratus'', and it does not show air-vesicles, as ''Fucus vesiculosus''.Newton, L. 1931. ''A Handbook of the British Seaweeds.'' British Museum, Natural History, LondonTaylor,W.R. 1972. ''Marine Algae of the Northeastern Coast of North America.'' Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press

Life history

The reproductive bodies form rounded swollen tips on the branches, usually in pairs. In the

conceptacle Conceptacles are specialized cavities of marine and freshwater algae that contain the reproductive organs. They are situated in the receptacle and open by a small ostiole.Boney, A.D. (1969). ''A Biology of Marine Algae''. Hutchinson Educational ...

s oögonia and

antheridia An antheridium is a haploid structure or organ producing and containing male gametes (called ''antherozoids'' or sperm). The plural form is antheridia, and a structure containing one or more antheridia is called an androecium. Androecium is also ...

are produced after

meiosis Meiosis (; , since it is a reductional division) is a special type of cell division of germ cells in sexually-reproducing organisms that produces the gametes, such as sperm or egg cells. It involves two rounds of division that ultimately r ...

and then released. Fertilisation follows and the

zygote A zygote (, ) is a eukaryotic cell formed by a fertilization event between two gametes. The zygote's genome is a combination of the DNA in each gamete, and contains all of the genetic information of a new individual organism. In multicell ...

develops directly into the diploid sporophyte plant.

Ecology

The other common species of ''

Fucus ''Fucus'' is a genus of brown algae found in the intertidal zones of rocky seashores almost throughout the world. Description and life cycle The thallus is perennial with an irregular or disc-shaped holdfast or with haptera. The erect portion o ...

'' on the coasts of

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...

: ''Fucus spiralis'', ''Fucus vesiculosus'' and ''Fucus serratus'' along with ''

Ascophyllum nodosum ''Ascophyllum nodosum'' is a large, common cold water seaweed or brown alga (Phaeophyceae) in the family Fucaceae, being the only species in the genus ''Ascophyllum''. It is a seaweed that only grows in the northern Atlantic Ocean, also known in ...

'' form the main and dominant seaweeds on rocky shores. These three species, along with two others ''

Pelvetia canaliculata ''Pelvetia canaliculata'', the channelled wrack, is a very common brown alga (Phaeophyceae) found on the rocks of the upper shores of Europe. It is the only species remaining in the monotypic genus ''Pelvetia''. In 1999, the other members of this ...

'' and ''

'' form the zones along the shore.Lewis, J.R. 1964. ''The Ecology of Rocky Shores.'' The English Universities Press.

Distribution

''F. spiralis'' is common on the coasts all around the

,Hardy, G. and Guiry, M.D. 2003. ''A Check-list and Atlas of the Seaweeds of Britain and Ireland.'' British Phycological Society western coasts of

, Canary Islands and North-eastern America. Fucus spiralis Spiral Wrack

Chemistry

''Fucus spiralis'' produces phlorotannins of both the fucol and fucophlorethol types.Co-occurrence and antioxidant activities of fucol and fucophlorethol classes of polymeric phenols in Fucus spiralis. Cérantola Stéphane, Breton Florian, Ar Gall Erwan and Deslandes Eric, Botanica Marina., Volume 49, Issue 4, Pages 347–351,

References

External links

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1934508 Fucales Biota of the Atlantic Ocean Edible algae Species described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Fucaceae