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Brown Algae
Brown algae (: alga) are a large group of multicellular algae comprising the class (biology), class Phaeophyceae. They include many seaweeds located in colder waters of the Northern Hemisphere. Brown algae are the major seaweeds of the temperate and polar regions. Many brown algae, such as members of the order Fucales, commonly grow along rocky seashores. Most brown algae live in marine environments, where they play an important role both as food and as a potential habitat. For instance, ''Macrocystis'', a kelp of the order Laminariales, may reach in length and forms prominent underwater kelp forests that contain a high level of biodiversity. Another example is ''Sargassum'', which creates unique floating mats of seaweed in the tropical waters of the Sargasso Sea that serve as the habitats for many species. Some members of the class, such as kelps, are used by humans as food. Between 1,500 and 2,000 species of brown algae are known worldwide. Some species, such as ''Ascophyllum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sargassum
''Sargassum'' is a genus of brown macroalgae ( seaweed) in the order Fucales of the Phaeophyceae class. Numerous species are distributed throughout the temperate and tropical oceans of the world, where they generally inhabit shallow water and coral reefs, and the genus is widely known for its planktonic (free-floating) species. Most species within the class Phaeophyceae are predominantly cold-water organisms that benefit from nutrients upwelling, but the genus ''Sargassum'' appears to be an exception. The species within Sargassum are normally benthic, but some of the species may take on a planktonic, often pelagic existence after being removed from reefs during rough weather. Two species (''S. natans'' and ''S. fluitans'') have become holopelagic—reproducing vegetatively and never attaching to the seafloor during their lifecycles. The Atlantic Ocean's Sargasso Sea was named after the algae, as it hosts a large amount of ''Sargassum''. The size of annual blooms in the Atlan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Jurassic
The Late Jurassic is the third Epoch (geology), epoch of the Jurassic Period, and it spans the geologic time scale, geologic time from 161.5 ± 1.0 to 143.1 ± 0.8 million years ago (Ma), which is preserved in Upper Jurassic stratum, strata.Owen 1987. In European lithostratigraphy, the name "Malm" indicates rocks of Late Jurassic age. In the past, ''Malm'' was also used to indicate the unit of geological time, but this usage is now discouraged to make a clear distinction between lithostratigraphic and geochronologic/chronostratigraphic units. Subdivisions The Late Jurassic is divided into three ages, which correspond with the three (faunal) stages of Upper Jurassic rock: Paleogeography During the Late Jurassic Epoch, Pangaea broke up into two supercontinents, Laurasia to the north, and Gondwana to the south. The result of this break-up was the emergence of the Atlantic Ocean, which initially was relatively narrow. Life forms This epoch is well known for many famous types of d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kelp Forest
Kelp forests are underwater areas with a high density of kelp, which covers a large part of the world's coastlines. Smaller areas of anchored kelp are called kelp beds. They are recognized as one of the most productive and dynamic ecosystems on Earth. Although algal kelp forest combined with coral reefs only cover 0.1% of Earth's total surface, they account for 0.9% of global Primary production, primary productivity. Kelp forests occur worldwide throughout temperate and polar region, polar coastal oceans. In 2007, kelp forests were also discovered in tropical waters near Ecuador. Physically formed by brown macroalgae, kelp forests provide a unique habitat for marine organisms and are a source for understanding many ecological processes. Over the last century, they have been the focus of extensive research, particularly in Trophic dynamics, trophic ecology, and continue to provoke important ideas that are relevant beyond this unique ecosystem. For example, kelp forests can infl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cellular Differentiation
Cellular differentiation is the process in which a stem cell changes from one type to a differentiated one. Usually, the cell changes to a more specialized type. Differentiation happens multiple times during the development of a multicellular organism as it changes from a simple zygote to a complex system of tissues and cell types. Differentiation continues in adulthood as adult stem cells divide and create fully differentiated daughter cells during tissue repair and during normal cell turnover. Some differentiation occurs in response to antigen exposure. Differentiation dramatically changes a cell's size, shape, membrane potential, metabolic activity, and responsiveness to signals. These changes are largely due to highly controlled modifications in gene expression and are the study of epigenetics. With a few exceptions, cellular differentiation almost never involves a change in the DNA sequence itself. Metabolic composition, however, gets dramatically altered where st ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fucoxanthin
Fucoxanthin is a xanthophyll, with formula C42H58O6. It is found as an accessory pigment in the chloroplasts of brown algae and most other heterokonts, giving them a brown or olive-green color. Fucoxanthin absorbs light primarily in the blue-green to yellow-green part of the visible spectrum, peaking at around 510–525 nm by various estimates and absorbing significantly in the range of 450 to 540 nm. Function Carotenoids are pigments produced by plants and algae and play a role in light harvesting as part of the photosynthesis process. Xanthophylls are a subset of carotenoids, identified by the fact that they are oxygenated either as hydroxyl groups or as epoxide bridges. This makes them more water soluble than carotenes such as beta-carotene. Fucoxanthin is a xanthophyll that contributes more than 10% of the estimated total production of carotenoids in nature. It is an accessory pigment found in the chloroplasts of many brown macroalgae, such as ''Fucus'' , and the gold ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Symbiotic Relationship
Symbiosis (Ancient Greek : living with, companionship < : together; and ''bíōsis'': living) is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction, between two s of different . The two organisms, termed symbionts, can for example be in mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasitic relationships. In 1879, [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chloroplast
A chloroplast () is a type of membrane-bound organelle, organelle known as a plastid that conducts photosynthesis mostly in plant cell, plant and algae, algal cells. Chloroplasts have a high concentration of chlorophyll pigments which capture the Radiant energy, energy from sunlight and convert it to chemical energy and release oxygen. The chemical energy created is then used to make sugar and other organic molecules from carbon dioxide in a process called the Calvin cycle. Chloroplasts carry out a number of other functions, including fatty acid synthesis, amino acid synthesis, and the immune response in plants. The number of chloroplasts per cell varies from one, in some unicellular algae, up to 100 in plants like ''Arabidopsis'' and wheat. Chloroplasts are highly dynamic—they circulate and are moved around within cells. Their behavior is strongly influenced by environmental factors like light color and intensity. Chloroplasts cannot be made anew by the plant cell and must ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viridiplantae
Viridiplantae (; kingdom Plantae '' sensu stricto'') is a clade of around 450,000–500,000 species of eukaryotic organisms, most of which obtain their energy by photosynthesis. The green plants are chloroplast-bearing autotrophs that play important primary production roles in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. They include green algae, which are primarily aquatic, and the land plants (embryophytes, Plantae '' sensu strictissimo''), which emerged within freshwater green algae. Green algae traditionally excludes the land plants, rendering them a paraphyletic group, however it is cladistically accurate to think of land plants as a special clade of green algae that evolved to thrive on dry land. Since the realization that the embryophytes emerged from within the green algae, some authors are starting to include them. Viridiplantae species all have cells with cellulose in their cell walls, and primary chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria that contain c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eukaryote
The eukaryotes ( ) constitute the Domain (biology), domain of Eukaryota or Eukarya, organisms whose Cell (biology), cells have a membrane-bound cell nucleus, nucleus. All animals, plants, Fungus, fungi, seaweeds, and many unicellular organisms are eukaryotes. They constitute a major group of Outline of life forms, life forms alongside the two groups of prokaryotes: the Bacteria and the Archaea. Eukaryotes represent a small minority of the number of organisms, but given their generally much larger size, their collective global biomass is much larger than that of prokaryotes. The eukaryotes emerged within the archaeal Kingdom (biology), kingdom Asgard (Archaea), Promethearchaeati and its sole phylum Promethearchaeota. This implies that there are only Two-domain system, two domains of life, Bacteria and Archaea, with eukaryotes incorporated among the Archaea. Eukaryotes first emerged during the Paleoproterozoic, likely as Flagellated cell, flagellated cells. The leading evolutiona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clade
In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach to taxonomy adopted by most biological fields. The common ancestor may be an individual, a population, or a species (extinct or Extant taxon, extant). Clades are nested, one in another, as each branch in turn splits into smaller branches. These splits reflect evolutionary history as populations diverged and evolved independently. Clades are termed ''monophyletic'' (Greek: "one clan") groups. Over the last few decades, the cladistic approach has revolutionized biological classification and revealed surprising evolutionary relationships among organisms. Increasingly, taxonomists try to avoid naming Taxon, taxa that are not clades; that is, taxa that are not Monophyly, monophyletic. Some of the relationships between organisms that the molecul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stramenopile
The stramenopiles, also called heterokonts, are protists distinguished by the presence of stiff tripartite external hairs. In most species, the hairs are attached to flagella, in some they are attached to other areas of the cellular surface, and in some they have been secondarily lost (in which case relatedness to stramenopile ancestors is evident from other shared cytological features or from genetic similarity). Stramenopiles represent one of the three major clades in the SAR supergroup, along with Alveolata and Rhizaria. Stramenopiles are eukaryotes; most are single-celled, but some are multicellular including some large seaweeds, the brown algae. The group includes a variety of algal protists, heterotrophic flagellates, opalines and closely related proteromonad flagellates (all endobionts in other organisms); the actinophryid Heliozoa, and oomycetes. The tripartite hairs characteristic of the group have been lost in some of the included taxa – for example in most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carbon Fixation
Biological carbon fixation, or сarbon assimilation, is the Biological process, process by which living organisms convert Total inorganic carbon, inorganic carbon (particularly carbon dioxide, ) to Organic compound, organic compounds. These organic compounds are then used to store energy and as structures for other Biomolecule, biomolecules. Carbon is primarily fixed through photosynthesis, but some organisms use chemosynthesis in the absence of sunlight. Chemosynthesis is carbon fixation driven by chemical energy rather than from sunlight. The process of biological carbon fixation plays a crucial role in the global carbon cycle, as it serves as the primary mechanism for removing from the atmosphere and incorporating it into Biomass (ecology), living biomass. The primary production of organic compounds allows carbon to enter the biosphere. Carbon is considered essential for life as a base element for building organic compounds. The flow of carbon from the Earth's atmosphere, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
