Algae: Overview and Importance for Earths Atmosphere

Earths Atmosphere: Not Much of It

Mass Atmosphere = 5.2 x 1018 kg

Mass Oceans = 1.4 x 1021 kg
Mass Earth = 6.0 x 1024 kg
Live Biomass = 1 x 1015kg
Carbon Dioxide = 3 x 1015 kg
Trunover Time for carbon dioxide =
5 years in atmosphere, centuries
in oceans
Carbon dioxide cycles between low values in summer and
higher values in winter in the Northern Hemisphere due to
seasonal differences in photosynthesis.

Annual input from fossil fuels and deforestation: 3 x 1013 kg

carbon dioxide. Half accumulates in the atmosphere, rest is
absorbed in oceans, leading to acidification.

Pre-industrial carbon dioxide level was 280 ppm, now 380 ppm.
Early Earth Atmosphere:

No Oxygen
Lots of Carbon Dioxide,
Methane, Water Vapor, Hydrogen
Cyanobacteria and Oxygenic Photosynthesis
About 3 Billion Years Ago. Water is the electron
donor. CO2 + H2O CH2O + O2
Oxygenic photosynthesis is
complicated. It requires two
photosystems and is thought to
have arisen only once in the
course of evolution.
 Modern Stromatolites Fossil Stromatolite (2.5
Billion Years Old)
Banded Iron Formation
Oxygen Was A Poison to Early
Life Forms on Earth. Took about 1
billion years before oceans and
atmosphere were fully oxygenated
Oxygen in the air allowed the evolution of eucaryotes and aerobic
respiration, finally leading to the worlds life forms present today.
 Oxygen also produced the ozone shield which protects water in the upper
atmosphere from boiling away as hydrogen

Ozone in the upper atmosphere (derived from O2) protects against the splitting
H2O to H and OH, with H escaping to space.

Earth has lost about 25% of its water while water is nearly all gone on Venus and
Mars.
Greenhouse
Gasses:

Water Vapor
Carbon Dioxide*
Methane*
Nitrous Oxide*

*Increasing Due
To Human
Activity
 1500 Ma

60 Ma

Evolution of the modern algae orders.

600 Ma to
present
evolution of
animal
kingdom
SNOWBALL
EARTH

1st - 2200 MYA

2nd 850 MYA
Plate tectonics provides a resupply
of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere
50 MYA Diatoms and Grasses Reduce Carbon Dioxide to Very Low Levels

Diatoms Grasses
Evolution and impacts of algae on the atmosphere continue today
In this course we emphasize the ecology and biology of the
algae rather than the taxonomy. Main groups we will cover:

Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae)

Green Algae
Red Algae
Brown algae brown seaweeds, kelps, diatoms
Dinoflagellates
Coccolithophores
Others
Cyanobacteria Cell Structure
 Nostoc colony

Nostoc filaments with N2-fixing heterocysts

Ceramium filamentous red seaweed
Porphyridium Unicellular Bangean Red Algae
Chlamydomonas
 Enteromorpha

Ulva Monostroma
Diatoms

Heterokont in sexual stage

 Dinoflagellates

Desmokont Dinokont

Prorocentrum Lingulodinium
Red Tides
 Coccolithophores
Emiliania huxleyi Haptophytes
w/ two smooth
Ca + 2HCO3 ---> CaCO3 + H2O + CO2
flagella and
a coiled hapto-
nema