''Nodularia'' is a genus of

filamentous The word filament, which is descended from Latin ''filum'' meaning " thread", is used in English for a variety of thread-like structures, including: Astronomy * Galaxy filament, the largest known cosmic structures in the universe * Solar filament ...

nitrogen-fixing

cyanobacteria Cyanobacteria (), also known as Cyanophyta, are a phylum of gram-negative bacteria that obtain energy via photosynthesis. The name ''cyanobacteria'' refers to their color (), which similarly forms the basis of cyanobacteria's common name, blu ...

, or blue-green algae. They occur mainly in brackish or salinic waters, such as the hypersaline

Makgadikgadi Pans The Makgadikgadi Pan (Tswana pronunciation ), a salt pan situated in the middle of the dry savanna of north-eastern Botswana, is one of the largest salt flats in the world. The pan is all that remains of the formerly enormous Lake Makgadikg ...

, the Peel-Harvey Estuary in Western Australia or the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

. ''Nodularia'' cells occasionally form heavy algal blooms. Some strains produce a cyanotoxin called

nodularin R Nodularins are potent toxins produced by the cyanobacterium ''Nodularia spumigena'', among others. This aquatic, photosynthetic cyanobacterium forms visible colonies that present as algal blooms in brackish water bodies throughout the world. The l ...

, which is harmful to humans. The

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

for the genus is ''

Nodularia spumigena ''Nodularia'' is a genus of filamentous nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. They occur mainly in brackish or salinic waters, such as the hypersaline Makgadikgadi Pans, the Peel-Harvey Estuary in Western Australia or the Baltic S ...

'' Mertens ex Bornet & Flahault, 1886.

Morphology

''Nodularia'' may form solitary filaments or groups of filaments. They reproduce by the formation of hormogonia, filament breakage, and by

akinetes An akinete is an enveloped, thick-walled, non-motile, dormant cell formed by filamentous, heterocyst-forming cyanobacteria under the order Nostocales and Stigonematales. Akinetes are resistant to cold and desiccation. They also accumulate and stor ...

.Martin Dworkin and Stanley Falkow, 2006

References

*C. Michael Hogan (2008
''Makgadikgadi'', The Megalithic Portal, ed. Andy Burnham
*Jiří Komárek and Tomáš Hauer
Cyano Database of genera: Nodularia
' *Martin Dworkin and Stanley Falkow (2006) ''The Prokaryotes: a handbook on the biology of bacteria'', Published by Springer,

Line notes

{{Taxonbar, from=Q148757 Nostocales Cyanobacteria genera

Morphology

See also

References

Line notes