| Algae is actually one of the more dangerous species in the intertidal. If you’re not careful, you could slip and hurt yourself. Algae doesn’t really eat. Instead they take in nutrients from the surrounding water. They also use sunlight and water to produce photosynthesis energy, which makes them an autotroph. They use holdfasts to grab on to the bottom. Brown algae has additional pigments that hide green chlorophyll. The pigments allow the algae to live in deeper water. They also allow the algae to absorb light from deeper ranges. Some brown algae in the Southern Australia seas are the fastest growing of all plants. The main predators of algae are humans, fish, sea urchins, and many other herbivores, like worms. Algae does not have a defense mechanism, but they still strive and there are millions of algae in the ocean. There are thousands of different types of algae. Algae come in different shapes, sizes, and colors. No matter what beach you go to around the island, perhaps the world, there will be algae. Algae grow on top of coral and rocks. In order to grow, they absorb sunlight. Sometimes coral can die, because they need sunlight too, but algae blocks sunlight from getting to the coral. For instance, every site we have been to, we’ve seen algae growing on rocks. Algae takes up more than half the space of the intertidal. There is more algae than any other species. Algae is really cool, because its very interesting looking up the scientific names. Also the shape and form of some algae is very unique. The algae that are unique are Codium arabicum, Codium edule, Ulva fasciata, Ulva reticulata, Ventricaria ventricosa, and Gracilaria salicornia. These algae are unique because the shape of them is interesting. Ulva reticulata has holes in it, and Ventricaria ventricosa is like a bubble, and when you squeeze it, water comes out. The cool thing about the Codum species are their shapes. Ulva fasciata is cool because it feels like plastic and is a beautiful light green color.
There are many different organisms in the ocean, and we think that algae is one of the most important organisms of them all. Algae is on the bottom of the food chain, and is an autotroph, which means it makes its own food by using photosynthesis. Also in the process of photosynthesis it creates oxygen for the other animals. Algae is important since many organisms like fish, snails, and shrimp feed on it and if they don’t then they probably feed on organisms that eat algae. Algae is also a home for small organisms. When we stated working with algae we found little bug-looking things in the algae, which was interesting to us. Another thing that is interesting about algae is that algae is used in our everyday lives. You may not have known, but algae is used in everyday foods like jello, pudding, yogurt, and even in makeup. Algae is also edible when it is raw. You could just go and pick some off a rock and eat it, but it might not taste very good. Most algae is edible but there are some that are not so it isn’t really that smart to just pick anything and eat it. Algae is used though as food like nori, and furikake or poke. The common algae that we found were Ulva fasciata, Padina japonica, Padina australis, and Sargassum echinocarpum.
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