Cyanobacteria facts for kids
Quick facts for kids CyanobacteriaTemporal range: 3500 mya – Recent
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Oscillatoria sp | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | |
| Phylum: |
Cyanobacteria
|
| Orders | |
|
The taxonomy is under revision
|
|
Cyanobacteria are tiny living things, a type of bacteria, that can make their own food using sunlight. This process is called photosynthesis. Even though they were once called "blue-green algae," they are actually bacteria, not algae. There are about 1500 different kinds, or species, of cyanobacteria. Scientists believe that tiny parts inside plant cells, called chloroplasts, which help plants do photosynthesis, actually came from ancient cyanobacteria. Their DNA shows this connection.
Cyanobacteria have been around for a very, very long time. We have found their fossils from at least 3.5 billion years ago! They were the main living things found in stromatolites during the Archaean and Proterozoic eons, which were very early periods of Earth's history.
How Cyanobacteria Changed Earth
The way cyanobacteria make food through photosynthesis is super important. When Earth was young, its atmosphere had almost no oxygen. It was a "reducing" atmosphere, meaning it was full of gases that would react with oxygen.
Cyanobacteria in stromatolites were the first known living things to do photosynthesis and create free oxygen. After about a billion years, this oxygen production started to change the atmosphere in a huge way. This long process is called the Great Oxygenation Event.
Over time, this event caused a lot of living things that couldn't live with oxygen to die out. It also led to the world we know today, where most living things need and use oxygen to survive.
How They See Light
Cyanobacteria have a special way to sense light. A scientist named Conrad Mullineaux found out about this. He said, "It has a way of detecting where the light is; we know that because of the direction that it moves."
Scientists watched a single-celled pond slime (cyanobacterium). They saw how light rays hitting the cell's round surface would bend. These rays would focus into a bright spot on the opposite side of the cell. By moving away from this bright spot, the tiny microbe actually moves towards the light source.
Related Pages
Images for kids
-
Cyanobacteria are found almost everywhere. Sea spray containing marine microorganisms, including cyanobacteria, can be swept high into the atmosphere where they become aeroplankton, and can travel the globe before falling back to earth.
-
Prochlorococcus, an influential marine cyanobacterium which produces much of the world's oxygen -
Morphological variations • Unicellular: (a) Synechocystis and (b) Synechococcus elongatus • Non-heterocytous: (c) Arthrospira maxima,(d) Trichodesmium and (e) Phormidium • False- or non-branching heterocytous: (f) Nostocand (g) Brasilonema octagenarum • True-branching heterocytous: (h) Stigonema(ak) akinetes (fb) false branching (tb) true branching -
Nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria -
Cyanobacterial thylakoid membrane Outer and plasma membranes are in blue, thylakoid membranes in gold, glycogen granules in cyan, carboxysomes (C) in green, and a large dense polyphosphate granule (G) in pink -
Environmental impact of cyanobacteria and other photosynthetic microorganisms in aquatic systems. Different classes of photosynthetic microorganisms are found in aquatic and marine environments where they form the base of healthy food webs and participate in symbioses with other organisms. However, shifting environmental conditions can result in community dysbiosis, where the growth of opportunistic species can lead to harmful blooms and toxin production with negative consequences to human health, livestock and fish stocks. Positive interactions are indicated by arrows; negative interactions are indicated by closed circles on the ecological model.
-
Diagnostic Drawing: Cyanobacteria associated with tufa: Microcoleus vaginatus
-
Symbiosis with land plants Leaf and root colonization by cyanobacteria (1) Cyanobacteria enter the leaf tissue through the stomata and colonize the intercellular space, forming a cyanobacterial loop. (2) On the root surface, cyanobacteria exhibit two types of colonization pattern; in the root hair, filaments of Anabaena and Nostoc species form loose colonies, and in the restricted zone on the root surface, specific Nostoc species form cyanobacterial colonies. (3) Co-inoculation with 2,4-D and Nostoc spp. increases para-nodule formation and nitrogen fixation. A large number of Nostoc spp. isolates colonize the root endosphere and form para-nodules. -
Cyanobionts of Ornithocercus dinoflagellates Live cyanobionts (cyanobacterial symbionts) belonging to Ornithocercus dinoflagellate host consortium (a) O. magnificus with numerous cyanobionts present in the upper and lower girdle lists (black arrowheads) of the cingulum termed the symbiotic chamber. (b) O. steinii with numerous cyanobionts inhabiting the symbiotic chamber. (c) Enlargement of the area in (b) showing two cyanobionts that are being divided by binary transverse fission (white arrows). -
Epiphytic Calothrix cyanobacteria (arrows) in symbiosis with a Chaetoceros diatom. Scale bar 50 μm. -
Light microscope view of cyanobacteria from a microbial mat
-
Cell death in eukaryotes and cyanobacteria Types of cell death according to the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death (upper panel; and proposed for cyanobacteria (lower panel). Cells exposed to extreme injury die in an uncontrollable manner, reflecting the loss of structural integrity. This type of cell death is called "accidental cell death" (ACD). “Regulated cell death (RCD)” is encoded by a genetic pathway that can be modulated by genetic or pharmacologic interventions. Programmed cell death (PCD) is a type of RCD that occurs as a developmental program, and has not been addressed in cyanobacteria yet. RN, regulated necrosis. -
Synechococcus uses a gliding technique to move at 25 μm/s. Scale bar is about 10 µm.
-
Cyanobacteria cultured in specific media: Cyanobacteria can be helpful in agriculture as they have the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen in soil.
-
Spirulina tablets
-
Cyanobacteria activity turns Coatepeque Caldera lake a turquoise color
-
Cyanobacterial bloom near Fiji
-
Cyanobacteria in Lake Köyliö.
See also
In Spanish: Cyanobacteria para niños
