Octactis Speculum
   HOME





Octactis Speculum
''Octactis'' is a genus of silicoflagellates, marine life, marine photosynthetic unicellular protists that take the form of either flagellates or axopodial amoebae. Described by Josef Schiller in 1925, ''Octactis'' contains various species of marine phytoplankton, some of them responsible for algal blooms that are toxic to fish. Characteristics ''Octactis'' species are unicellular protists that appear as several different multinucleate forms (i.e. with multiple cell nucleus, nuclei). The most prevalent form is as amoebae surrounded by an external, basket-like Protist shell#Silicon-based shells, siliceous skeleton, consisting of two conspicuous rings: a smaller apical ring supported by short struts that are attached to a larger basal ring. The skeleton pikes sometimes occur on the surface of the basal ring. The large window that the apical ring encloses is undivided. Other forms also present are naked amoebae and sometimes mucocyst-bearing amoebae. Both skeleton-bearing and n ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Josef Schiller
Josef Schiller (16 June 1877, in Ringelsheim (Bohemia) – 1960) was an Austrian phycologist and hydrobiologist. He studied natural sciences at the University of Vienna, earning his doctorate in 1905. Afterwards he was an assistant at the zoological station in Trieste (1905-1910), where he developed an expertise involving benthic algae and phytoplankton. From 1918 he worked as a lecturer of botanical hydrobiology at the University of Vienna, and in 1927 he became an associate professor on the aforementioned subject. He was a visiting scientist at marine stations in Helgoland, Ragusa, Spolato and Rovigno d'Istria, giving classes in botanical hydrobiology. Later in his career, he conducted research in the field of apiology, being known for his studies on the physiological differences between summer and winter bees. From 1938 to 1947, he was in charge of the investigative body for infectious bee diseases at Vienna's University of Veterinary Medicine. The genera ''Schilleriella'', ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Lutein
Lutein (;"Lutein"
.
from ''luteus'' meaning "yellow") is a xanthophyll and one of 600 known naturally occurring carotenoids. Lutein is synthesized only by plants, and like other xanthophylls is found in high quantities in green le ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Diadinoxanthin
Diadinoxanthin is a pigment found in phytoplankton. It has the formula C40H54O3. It gives rise to the xanthophylls diatoxanthin and dinoxanthin. Diadinoxanthin is a plastid pigment. Plastid pigments include chlorophylls a and c, fucoxanthin, heteroxanthin, diatoxanthin, and diadinoxanthin. Diadinoxanthin is a carotenoid. It is found in diatoms, along with other carotenoids like fucoxanthin and beta-carotene. Diatoms are referred to as golden-brown microalgae because of the color of their plastids and because the carotenoids mask chlorophyll-a and chlorophyll-c. Diadinoxanthin is a xanthophyll. Xanthophyll pigments are photoprotective pigments that help protect cells from harmful effects of too much light energy (light saturation). It is present in cells along with diatoxanthin (another xanthophyll). Diadinoxanthin is stockpiled in the cell to become available when needed. Thus it is the inactive precursor of diatoxanthin, which is the active energy dissipator. See also * ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Carotenoid
Carotenoids () are yellow, orange, and red organic pigments that are produced by plants and algae, as well as several bacteria, archaea, and fungi. Carotenoids give the characteristic color to pumpkins, carrots, parsnips, corn, tomatoes, canaries, flamingos, salmon, lobster, shrimp, and daffodils. Over 1,100 identified carotenoids can be further categorized into two classes xanthophylls (which contain oxygen) and carotenes (which are purely hydrocarbons and contain no oxygen). All are derivatives of tetraterpenes, meaning that they are produced from 8 isoprene units and contain 40 carbon atoms. In general, carotenoids absorb wavelengths ranging from 400 to 550 nanometers (violet to green light). This causes the compounds to be deeply colored yellow, orange, or red. Carotenoids are the dominant pigment in autumn leaf coloration of about 15-30% of tree species, but many plant colors, especially reds and purples, are due to polyphenols. Carotenoids serve two key roles in p ...
[...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]  


Chlorophyll C3
Chlorophyll ''c'' refers to forms of chlorophyll found in certain marine algae, including the photosynthetic Chromista (e.g. diatoms and brown algae) and dinoflagellates. These pigments are characterized by their unusual chemical structure, with a porphyrin as opposed to the chlorin (which has a reduced ring D) as the core; they also do not have an isoprenoid tail. Both these features stand out from the other chlorophylls commonly found in algae and plants. It has a blue-green color and is an accessory pigment, particularly significant in its absorption of light in the 447–520 nm wavelength region. Like chlorophyll ''a'' and chlorophyll ''b'', it helps the organism gather light and passes a quanta of excitation energy through the light harvesting antennae to the photosynthetic reaction centre. Chlorophyll ''c'' can be further divided into chlorophyll ''c''1, chlorophyll ''c''2, and chlorophyll ''c''3, plus at least eight other more recently found subtypes. Chlorophyll ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Chlorophyll C1
Chlorophyll ''c'' refers to forms of chlorophyll found in certain marine algae, including the photosynthetic Chromista (e.g. diatoms and brown algae) and dinoflagellates. These pigments are characterized by their unusual chemical structure, with a porphyrin as opposed to the chlorin (which has a reduced ring D) as the core; they also do not have an isoprenoid tail. Both these features stand out from the other chlorophylls commonly found in algae and plants. It has a blue-green color and is an accessory pigment, particularly significant in its absorption of light in the 447–520 nm wavelength region. Like chlorophyll ''a'' and chlorophyll ''b'', it helps the organism gather light and passes a quanta of excitation energy through the light harvesting antennae to the photosynthetic reaction centre. Chlorophyll ''c'' can be further divided into chlorophyll ''c''1, chlorophyll ''c''2, and chlorophyll ''c''3, plus at least eight other more recently found subtypes. Chlo ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Golgi Bodies
The Golgi apparatus (), also known as the Golgi complex, Golgi body, or simply the Golgi, is an organelle found in most eukaryotic Cell (biology), cells. Part of the endomembrane system in the cytoplasm, it protein targeting, packages proteins into membrane-bound Vesicle (biology and chemistry), vesicles inside the cell before the vesicles are sent to their destination. It resides at the intersection of the secretory, lysosomal, and Endocytosis, endocytic pathways. It is of particular importance in processing proteins for secretion, containing a set of glycosylation enzymes that attach various sugar monomers to proteins as the proteins move through the apparatus. The Golgi apparatus was identified in 1898 by the Italian biologist and pathologist Camillo Golgi. The organelle was later named after him in the 1910s. Discovery Because of its large size and distinctive structure, the Golgi apparatus was one of the first organelles to be discovered and observed in detail. It was d ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

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]