Algae

The kelp forest exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, United States

Algae is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular microalgae, to multicellular forms that may grow up to 50 metres (160 ft) in length. Most are aquatic and autotrophic (generate food internally) and lack many of the distinct cell and tissue types.

Use

Because of the wide range of types of algae, they have increasing different industrial and traditional applications in human society. Traditional seaweed farming practices have existed for thousands of years and have strong traditions in East Asia food cultures. More modern algaculture applications extend the food traditions for other applications include cattle feed, using algae for bioremediation or pollution control, transforming sunlight into algae fuels or other chemicals used in industrial processes, and in medical and scientific applications.

Dependencies

• Algae
• Food

See also

• Bacteria
• Cotton
• Hemp
• Grasses
• Pine
• Rubber
• Stick
• Raw material

References

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Algae, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (view authors).