Algae is a plant right? (algea question)

[reiverix]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protist

Algae used to be classified under the Kingdom of Plantae until recently. Biologists are now using DNA and molecular biology to determine the taxamonic classification of many organisms.

That was really interesting. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[sumthin fishy]

I like the old classifications where everything is simple...like my apistogramma ramerizi

And doug, I deffinatly do not recal alluding to the fact I had been intoxicated

 

[dougall]

I never said you did..

but if I'm gonna fall asleep on the couch, it's easier to justify to myself if I had a few good martinis first. Just suggesting that anyone else who might want to try your method may do best to have a few drinks rather than a hard day at work to incite the correct sleep pattern.

 

[joephys]

GRRRRR :rant2:

I can't get my plants to pearl and he gets pearling algae.


NOT FAIR!

:laugh: That was funny, but only because I feel the same way.

 

[plantbrain]

Algae are not plants. They belong to a Kingdom called Protists. Many scientist believe that plants evolved from green algae since they share the same pigments such as chlorophyll a and b, and carotenoids.

Biology's 6th edition Campbell is fairly well accepted, in the olden days, maybe 15 years ago, that would be correct.

There are several folks that like 5 kingdom series, some that prefer 8.
I'm more partial to 8, given the molecular evidence.

Here's the 8:

Green algae are in the Kingdom Plantae. This is where they belong I feel from a molecular ecological view as well as other traits.

Red algae are in the Kingdom Rhodophyta

Diatoms, Golden algae, Brown algae are in the Kingdom Stramenopila

Dinoflagellates are in the Kingdom Alveolata

And Euglena is in the Kingdom Euglenoza

Some splitters got a hold of the old system and whacked it up good.
The main reason is the DNA markers of the conserved regions of each group's genes are very good at mapping the time and flow of different pieces of DNA.

The protista group is a poor grouping and will get axed at some point.

This is a very accurate way to determine who is related to who, just like a paternity suit or whether the murder weapon has the accused's blood on it or not or if you are related to some long lost relative.

There is a huge amount of work going into this field and it's changed a lot in the field of taxonomy. This causes confusion for the rest of the folks.

I suppose it's good, but a PITA if you learned something a long time ago and need to refresh and update!

I taught and wrote an 8 kingdom system.
The folks doing the cutting edge evolution research on it at UF suggested this as well. I'm much more inclined to hear their arguements that a wikipedia post with not references to single algae journal but in their defense, algae base refers to 5 kingdom listing.

So it might not be one or the other, but both and it also depends on who you ask.

It's a thorny question truthfully, even for me.

The journal references do not deal with algae precisely in the wikipedia source.

http://www.palaeos.com/Kingdoms/kingdoms.htm
These guys are splitters.

Note, no one is really right or wrong, names are just things we call them, it's all about who wants to yell the loudest about it.

http://www.nmnh.si.edu/botany/projects/algae/classification.htm

I prefer to refer to them this way as Divisions(same a phyla).

This gets around those pesky Cyanobacteria which phycologist have alwauys done the research on, they are so different than most all bacteria, radically different, that they might even be considered moved up to an even higher classification.

http://www.algaebase.org/taxonomy.lasso?id=1&-session=abv3:18079DB90c4820AC15nkM2FD2EB7

They use a sub system and classify as both as a kingdom.
This will probably change, many things do over time.

I like the algae base version as well as Campbell's.

Hard to really say who is right.
Main thing is to know the main Divisions at least and perhaps be aware of the kingdom issues.

I like to deal with things that have thylkaloids(cyano's, all algae and plants) and Chloroplast(algae and plants).

That makes life a simpler to some degree.

Here's a nice question:

Riccia and Caulpera, why is Riccia called a plant(no roots, not much except a green thallus mass) and why is Caulpera, with it's root like Rhizoids + stolons, leafy looking blades, stem like stipes etc called an alga?

Regards,
Tom Barr