Environmental Microbiology: Positive and Negative Effects of Algae Utilization - Assignment Example

Algae are actually not a uniform group of organisms. Expertcolumn.com reveals that there are seven distantly related divisions of the organisms. The reason why they are considered together is for human convenience and not as a reflection of their biological, evolutionary or ordered relationships. It is also important to note that algae are also known to be phototropic.Lenntech.com (1) asserts that almost all algae are eukaryotes and the exact nature of their chloroplasts which contains DNA is different in different lines of algae.

Cyanobacteria are a classification of organisms traditionally incorporated among the algae though they have a prokaryotic cell structure and they conduct photosynthesis directly within the cytoplasm and not in specialized organs.Expertscolumn.com (1) categorically explains the significance of algae. Economically, Phytoplankton from algae is a source of food to many aquatic living things such as fish and also provides oxygen to their surrounding environment. The desmids help in the analysis of water contamination or pollution.

Another example is the brown algae. The brown algae contain alginic acid which is a source of lignites. Algae have negative effects as much as they have many uses. A typical scenario is that when a huge increase in algae occurs, a ‘red tide’ occurs. This is characterized by the ocean changing its color to red in certain areas as a result of the pigment coming from the algae.In conclusion, more research should be done to discover more areas through which algae can be utilized as opposed to their negative effects.

This can be attributed to the fact that algae will always exist within our society and the more ways of utilizing them in our lives, the better.