Economic Importance of Algae

Table of Content:

• Uses of Algae
• Difference Between Algae and Plants
• MCQs

Algae are entities that are spread throughout the world. They greatly vary in their shapes, sizes and colours. Algae can exist without anyone else, or they can develop on the surfaces of different life forms, in the dirt or on rocks. These creatures are significant in light of the fact that they make a big deal about Earth’s oxygen, which people and different creatures need to relax. Some of these organisms look like plants, such as seaweed.
 
Their size varies greatly, and they grow in many different habitats. Microscopic algae in lakes and oceans called phytoplankton, float or swim. Phytoplankton is so small that one thousand individuals can fit on a pin’s head.

Algae pertain to a broad variety of marine eukaryotic organisms that are all involved in the photosynthesis process. Such aquatic plants are distinguished by their lack of flowers, formal roots, leaves, or even stems, ranging from unicellular microalgae to giant kelp. The organic material can be utilized in fish farming as a source of food, as a fodder, and also as a fertilizer. It likewise assumes a key job in recovering alkalines, can be utilized as dirt restricting specialist and utilized in various business products.

Explore: Brown Algae

Food

Most societies around the globe think about green growth as a basic wellspring of sustenance. Residents living in European nations like Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Sweden, and Norway just as individuals living in South and North America, and Asian countries like Japan and China are utilizing green growth as a key fixing in various nearby dishes. Such dinners may remember green growth for a serving of mixed greens, following meat in a singed pot, as oats beating, or even as a fluid concentrate in a nutritious smoothie.

Green growth contains various gainful components including sugars, fats, proteins and nutrients A, B, C and E. Green growth isn’t just viewed as a minimal effort wellspring of protein by numerous buyers around the globe, it additionally contains various significant minerals, for example, potassium, iron, magnesium, manganese, calcium, and zinc. An assortment of dairy items, for example, milk, frozen yoghurt, cheddar, whipped fixings, just as sugar, icing, organic product squeeze, and even plate of mixed greens dressings, are regularly found in green growth.

Specifically, dark-coloured green growth is utilized to balance out, expand, and emulsify different nourishment items, while red green growth is utilized in the arrangement of different semi-strong items as huge as meds, beauty care products, and in the preparation of a wide scope of nourishments. For instance, to sustain domesticated animals

Fodder

Algae are utilised as a feed for a diverse set of farm animals, especially seaweed. For example, cows and chickens, Rhodymenia palmate or alleged “Sheep’s weed” is utilized. Green growth is utilized as a grain in different nations, including the northern European nations of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, just as in Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand and South and North America.

Reclaiming alkaline

Fields that once generated large quantities of agricultural yields in several countries, like India too, for instance, can no more be used to procure the same yield as a result of high alkalinity levels of the soil. To eventually grow crops in these lands, often referred to as “usar” lands, it is necessary to lower pH level and increase the soil’s ability to hold onto water. The blue-green algae can be used to accomplish this cycle.

Binding agent

Soil can be held together by algae. In protecting against natural processes such as erosion, the effectiveness of algae to help in healthy soil formation is important.

Also Read: Examples of Green Algae

• First, algae can be single-cell, territorial, or multi-cellular. Diversly, plants are just multi-cellular. Multi-cellular algae are comprised of holdfasts, staples and needles. By contrast, plants have their stems, roots, flowers, leaves, fruits, seeds and cones. Not only do the plant roots hold them in place, but they also feed them. Plants have vascular systems that enable nutrients and water to be absorbed and transported. On the other hand, each cell in algae, for survival must get its own nutrients from the water.
• Clearly, as they are rooted in the ground, plants can not move. On a few algae, holdfasts, comparable to plant roots, are both photosynthetic in plants and algae. Both are also referred to as eukaryotes, composed of different part cells.
• Both have the same cycle of life called alternation between ages as well. Algae, however, are not plants. They are just members of the Protista kingdom. Plants make up their own kingdom, the Plantae Kingdom. Although plants and algae may appear to be visually quite similar at times, they actually have a lot of differences.
• The plants and algae are completely different in terms of where they live, how they grow and replicate, and what they create. Many algae migrate with the flow of the sea. In addition, some algae are mobile. For example, dinoflagellates whip themselves with a tail-like structure called flagella through the water.
• Algae are usually found in water, although they can be found on snow or land, even in marine animals or rocks or in the fur of certain rainforest creatures such as sloth. Typically, plants are found on land; however, they may also be seen in the water, such as marine eelgrass and freshwater lilies.
• For plants and algae, reproduction could not be more different. Plants have diverse, multi-cellular reproductive systems and some even need pollination assistance from water, birds, or insects. Comparatively, algae may replicate via small spores or even through replication or broken part growth.

MCQs

1. Carpogonia is the female sex organ of ______?

a) Rhodophyta

b) Xanthophyta

c) Chrysophyta

d) Chlorophyta

answer: a) Rhodophyta

2. Usually, the xanthophyte walls are of _______?

a) chitin

b) cellulose

c) cellulose and pectin

d) starch

answer: c) cellulose and pectin

3. In which of the following forms does Chrysamoeba exist?

a) nonmotile coccoid

b) filamentous

c) amoeboid

d) motile amoeboid

answer: d) motile amoeboid

4. Frustules are found in which of the following algae?

a) Bacillariophyta

b) Chlorophyta

c) Euglenophyta

d) Rhodophyta

answer: a) Bacillariophyta

5. The most common method of sexual reproduction in Chlamydomonas is ______?

a) isogamy

b) heterogamy

c) oogamy

d) spore formation

answer: a) isogamy

Explore more on Algae and other important topics for NEET at BYJU’S.

Also Read:

• What is an Algae Bloom?
• Uses of Blue-Green Algae

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