CYANOPHYCEAE

The Cyanophyceae or blue-green algae are, today, usually referred to as the cyanobacteria (blue-green bacteria). The term cyanobacteria acknowledges that these prokaryotic algae are more closely related to the prokaryotic bacteria than to eukaryotic algae. For the last quarter century, cyanobacteria were thought to have evolved about 3.5 billion years ago. These reports were based on interpretation of microfossils, difficult at best with such small organisms. It now appears that these investigators selected specimens that fit the assumptions of the authors, with most phycologists now rejecting their claims. Based on other reports, the actual time of evolution of cyanobacteria is thought to be closer to 2.7 billion years ago (Buick, 1992; Brasier et al., 2002; Dalton, 2002).

Cyanobacteria have chlorophyll a (some also have chlorophyll b or d), phycobiliproteins, glycogen as a storage product, and cell walls containing amino sugars and amino acids.

At one time, the occurrence of chlorophyll b in cyanobacteria was used as a criterion to place the organisms in a separate group, the Prochlorophyta. Modern nucleic-acid sequencing, however, has shown that chlorophyll b evolved a number of times within the cyanobacteria and the term Prochlorophyta has been discarded (Palenik and Haselkorn, 1992; Urback et al., 1992).

Morphology

The simplest morphology in the cyanobacteria is that of unicells, free-living (see Figs. 2.19(c), 2.20) or enclosed within a mucilaginous envelope (Figs. 2.48, 2.56(a), (b)). Subsequent evolution resulted in the formation of a row of cells called a trichome (Fig. 2.16).