Prochlorophyta is a group of photosynthetic

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were am ...

, an important component of picoplankton. These oligotrophic organisms are abundant in nutrient poor tropical waters and use a unique photosynthetic pigment, divinyl-chlorophyll, to absorb light and acquire energy. Prochlorophyta lack red and blue

phycobilin Phycobilins (from Greek: '' (phykos)'' meaning "alga", and from Latin: ''bilis'' meaning "bile") are light-capturing bilins found in cyanobacteria and in the chloroplasts of red algae, glaucophytes and some cryptomonads (though not in green alga ...

pigments and have stacked thylakoids, making them distinctly different from Cyanobacteria (or Cyanophyta), but some authors consider them as part of the Cyanobacteria, as the group Prochlorales.

Discovery and naming

This unique group of

phytoplankton Phytoplankton () are the autotrophic (self-feeding) components of the plankton community and a key part of ocean and freshwater ecosystems. The name comes from the Greek words (), meaning 'plant', and (), meaning 'wanderer' or 'drifter'. P ...

, with no

pigments, were initially found in 1975 near the

Great Barrier Reef The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching for over over an area of approximately . The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, ...

and off the coast of Mexico ('' Prochloron''). Prochlorophyta was soon assigned as a new algal sub-class in 1976 by

Ralph A. Lewin Ralph Arnold Lewin (30 April 1921 – 30 November 2008) was an Anglo-American biologist, known as "the father of green algae genetics". He was born in London and later moved to America. He also was known as a poetry author. Education He studied a ...

of the

Scripps Institution of Oceanography The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (sometimes referred to as SIO, Scripps Oceanography, or Scripps) in San Diego, California, US founded in 1903, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and Earth science research, public servi ...

. Other phytoplankton that lacked

pigments were later found in freshwater lakes in the Netherlands by Tineke Burger-Wiersma and colleagues and were termed ''Prochlorothrix'' (additional reading on ''Prochlorothrix'' can be found in a journal article by A.V. Pinevich ). In 1986 '' Prochlorococcus'' was found by Sallie W. (Penny) Chisholm and colleagues. '' Prochlorococcus'' may be responsible for a significant portion of the global primary production.

Morphology

Prochlorophytes are very small microbes generally between 0.2 and 2 µm ( photosynthetic picoplankton). They morphologically resemble Cyanobacteria (formally known as

Blue Green Algae 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, blue ...

). Members of Prochlorophyta have been found as coccoid (spherical) (

Coccus A coccus (plural cocci) is any bacterium or archaeon that has a spherical, ovoid, or generally round shape. Bacteria are categorized based on their shapes into three classes: cocci (spherical-shaped), bacillus (rod-shaped) and spiral ( of w ...

) shaped, as in '' Prochlorococcus'', and as filaments, as in ''Prochlorothrix''.

References

External links

Prochlorophytes
{{Taxonbar, from=Q577485 Cyanobacteria

Discovery and naming

Morphology

See also

References

External links