Talk:Algae

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[edit] Algal cultivation for the production of biodiesel

Moved to Talk:Biodiesel


An automated Wikipedia link suggester has some possible wiki link suggestions for the Alga article:

  • Can link fossil record: ...s one of the first groups of living things to appear in the fossil record, dating back some 3800 million years ago ([[Precambrian]]) ... (link to section)
  • Can link cell structure: ...xygen]] atmosphere. They have a [[prokaryote|prokaryotic]] cell structure typical of bacteria and conduct photosynthesis directly wit... (link to section)
  • Can link life cycle: ...anizational levels, more than one of which may occur in the life cycle of a species, are:... (link to section)
  • Can link partial differentiation: ...anching * ''Parenchymatous'' - cells forming a thallus with partial differentiation of tissues... (link to section)

Notes: The article text has not been changed in any way; Some of these suggestions may be wrong, some may be right.
Feedback: I like it, I hate it, Please don't link to — LinkBot 11:28, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Line 194

This is vandalism! I leave it to am administrator to correct it.--Osborne 08:13, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alga is a protyst?

I am not an expert on these matters, but my biology book says that most algae are protysts, while this article contradicts this.

Really? By "protysts" I assume you mean the term, Protists, a heterogeneous group of eukaryotes and a term used in classifying mostly single-celled organisms. Many protists do have chloroplasts, and therefore would be algae. I'm unclear what you find contradictory in the Wikipedia article. There is a problem in whether these are "plants", but they have been traditionally considered plants, and any contradiction there is due to some editors problem with that term (discussed under plants) and not the original concept of Protista. Or perhaps it is the grouping "algae", which is a general category and not used for classification purposes, as the article points out in the first paragraph. - Marshman 04:31, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
You're right, I did mean "protists." I always spell that wrong. According to my biology book, "algae" is the term for plant-like protists, just as "protozoans" is the term for animal-like protists. Plant-like protists include euglenoids (phylum euglonophyta), diatoms (also called golden algae [I think]; phylum bacillariophyta), and dinoflagellates (phylum dinoflagellata). The more traditional algae are red algae (phylum rhodophyta), brown algae (phylum phaeophyta), and green algae (phylum chlorophyta). The last three all have some members that are usually known as seawead.
That book sounds pretty dated as to the taxonomy of these organisms. Or just over-simplifying by applying "common" names. It really once depended on whether you were a botanists or a zoologists (or protozoologist) whether single-celled organisms like Euglena were protozoans or not. Anyway, all that is best cleared up by reading material on more modern systems of classification and realizing that taxonomic classification is just an expression of how we look at things, not some absolute authority on the organization of nature - Marshman 19:33, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Red algae are often/usually/always in seaweed form (the book isn't clear). Their red color allows them to photosynthesize using blue light, which penetrates water deeper. They are used to make agar. Brown algae are complex, always seaweed, and include kelp. They have a brown pigment in addition to chlorophyll. Green algae is a very diverse phylum, containing most of what we usually think of as algae. Many species are also seaweed. Green algae are thought to be the ancestors of the plant kingdom.
All of that is fine and not especially contradictory with modern thought.
According to my biology teacher, there are some plants that grow underwater and are also types of seaweed. He can sometimes get facts a little off, though, so the validity of this may be questionable. It may be more or less common than he says.
Well all seaweeds grow underwater (sometimes briefly exposed by the tide), so I do not see a problem. There are also many plants (in the narrow sense of true plants, not algae) that grow underwater. But the term "seaweed" is limited to macroalgae that live in the sea. - Marshman 19:33, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
I know there is a lot of conflict about the classification of organisms, and that may be the problem. If that is the case, there should probably be an inclusion of all the leading classifications.

The problem is the word plant. When the article says that algae are generally considered plants, it's referring to the traditional definition, which is still in popular use. However, many texts on algae specifically exclude them from the plants, meaning the Plantae. Trying to ignore this difference, especially in favor of the older term, is confusing and we should change the wording - at the very least, protists should be mentioned. Also, saying algae are separate from bacteria and protozoa is an obsolete view; they overlap with both (plus there are other photoautotrophic bacteria). I've changed the opening to try and clear this up. Josh

Yes, Josh is right, and the "problem" used to be discussed under the article on plants, but I'm unsure if it is still there. - Marshman 19:33, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Moved to algae

Page title was alga but article was about algae. Made no sense. Apparently some holdover from the old days when "singular" was preferred. Alga is a dictionary term, this article is about algae, far the more popular and widely used of the two, certainly in biology - Marshman 05:15, 24 May 2005 (UTC) No one uses "Alga" - Marshman 04:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC) Well, 'alga' is the singular of 'algae' - AJ Smit 10:10, 15 June 2006

[edit] Biodiesel Additions

The considerable effort and contributions to this article regarding algae and biodiesel production are valuable, but not really appropriate here. I think either a separate article or (first) a section in the article on biodiesel is far more appropriate, since the subject is biodiesel production (from whatever), not algae focused. I am also concerned that the many links to outside web sites for biodiesel is starting to get beyond the Wikipedia policy that Wikipedia is not a collection of web links. Please consider reorganizing this material to better fit your intent - Marshman 22:49, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Algal Culture Article

Hi Marshman, I was going to leave a message here to ask about starting a link page for "algal cultures available for purchase", when i read this message about biodiesel. I'm not familiar with wikipedias format, to keep web links out of articles, do they have specially dedicated "link" pages, where all the links could be put, and then a single link could be put in the article to that page, or is wikipedia just trying to have as few web links as possible.

I'm not entirely clear on your question, but the first rule to consider is that Wikipedia is not a collection of web links, so the idea to create a web links page may not be a good one. In general, web links should either be part of the references (information used to write the article) or external links to "further reading" material. Links to commercial websites that sell algal cultures would likely be removed, as commercial sites are very much frowned upon unless they provide information in a non-commercial way that can not be obtained elsewhere. - Marshman 18:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

My interest in posting the biodiesel section was more on the cultivation of algae for biodiesel production, and the current developments towards that end. The biodiesel aspect is trivial, thats just the transesterification of an oil. But the efficient production of the base oil from algae is what i was getting at. The majority of land-based oil crops produce between 50 and 200 gallons of vegetable oil per acre, per year, Palm oil is an exception at 635 gal per acre, which is currently the best land crop. Algae can produce between 5,000 and 20,000 gal per acre, per year, and can remediate waste in the process. Algae is somewhat stand alone and that is why i tried to focus on the algal aspect of biodiesel production.

The title, Algal cultivation for the production of biodiesel might be more appropriate for now.

I didn't think that I had enough information to start a seperate page for biodiesel production from algae, I think there's only about a paragraph right now, but if you include the algal cultivation section, that takes up much more space.

What areas are you interested in moving from the algae page?, just Biodiesel.., or Uses, Cultivation, etc.


I think a good start would be a separate article on algal culture in general, as that is aquaculture oriented, whereas this article is more taxonomy oriented. - Marshman 18:48, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
I moved stuff over to Algae culture as proposed - Marshman 19:12, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] See also

Links listed under "See also" are those not used anywhere in the article, but would also be of interest - Marshman 03:30, 24 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Eukaryotic algae

I´ve copied and pasted a section about eukaryotic algae from an earlier version of the article. I hope that it was just cut accidentally or by vandalism, and not that no algae is regarded as eukaryotic anymore... --Extremophile 00:36, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] intro is too long

the introduction of this article is way too long. cant we incorporate some of the introduction part into the article? Suleyman Habeeb 14:52, 4 June 2006 (UTC)- or split it, just a thought, I will not do it! --Osborne 09:42, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Symbiosis with sponges

The fact was rather new for me (and not mentioned in Sponge article!) so I did some googling and finally came up to some explanation that was missing since the very starting point. However I'm in doubt whether the source is reliable enough; have some suitable biology book, anyone? Saimhe 18:43, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article structure

This article needs some cleaning up... The references should be moved towards the end, etc.... --Daniel Vaulot 08:30, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

The very nice development about the history of Phycology should be moved to a new article with a link from here. --Daniel Vaulot 09:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

The "History" could be expanded as a separate article on all botany? If there is not already one! However at least a shortened resumé of The History of ALGAL research is worthwhile. Osborne 10:36, 19 October 2006 (UTC) There is a separate article on the History Of Botany - but very short. Could be espanded, mutch stuff from History of Algae could be transferred....I suppose. Osborne A balance is needed between the history of "British" , European, American, Australian and other areas. They do interconnect but a balance is needed. I think it best to keek it ad an "Algal History" cross-referenced with "Botanic History". Help is needed whatever is done.81.144.158.195 11:26, 19 October 2006 (UTC)Osborne 11:27, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

It's a very well researched section, but rather long at this stage. It's also still seemingly well short of it's endevoured length, which may be a bit long for an encyclopedia article especially as a section in the algae article - a separate article would probably be the best idea with a condensed version here. For the unfinished parts, moving to the talk page and moving the references to the bottom of the page would be tidier. I must commend the editor though for such well referenced work. Richard001 08:16, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes. A separate article would be best, with a short résumé under algae. Completing this article is becomming a bigger job than I presumed! - and needs more info' from other areas of the world. I cannot move the section to form an article (I just don't know how). However I think what would be best. So Help - someone! Osborne 08:14, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it is best for the resume to go under Phycology --Kupirijo 16:41, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I just did the move to answer Osborne query... see History of phycology I also reorgranized things a bit so that for example references are at the end and not halphazardly in the text. I am not sure about the paragraph concerning biological exposure scales. I think it should be either expanded or removed --Daniel Vaulot 21:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes that's best. I have already found a little more and have added it in. Whether ther ref should be given in the text or at the end- well I will have to look again. My thanks to Dr D.Vaulot. Osborne 11:19, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Algae/History/Harvey

How much of these notes about Harvey are also in the link to Harvey? I am considering editting out some detail which is also in the Link.Osborne

[edit] Collecting and preserving specimens

This section reads a bit like a how to - I'm not sure if the article should go into instructions on preserving algae, or at least not in the way it is written in this section. Perhaps just rephrasing (and perhaps slightly shortening) the section would be appropriate. See What Wikipedia is not for reference. Richard001 08:26, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uses of...

frying "little kids" ?? What are "little Kids"? Osborne 15:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I decided to track it down (huh, appears fairly recent). Well, characteristic activity of the submitter (look at diffs) explains it. saimhe 18:15, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Further: I have created a subheading for "uses..." and transferred one ref to "References"- but how best should I have entered it?Osborne

Reference numbers are meant to appear in the text, instead of being listed somewhere alone. And this separate "===References===" I do not understand at all. Please look at this attempt, and feel free to revert if I missed something important. saimhe 17:52, 25 October 2006 (UTC).

Thanks, I have not yet mastered the way to note references. However, The section:"Chemical analysis...(dry weight)". came from:Irvine, L.M. and Chamberlain, Y.M.1994. Seaweeds of the British Isles. The Natural History Museum, London. and "Maerl is still harvested... organic gardening." is a quote from Blunden et al (1981) in Irvine & Chamberlain, 1994 (p183). The "CaCO3" should show the "3" as a small "3" as - which I can't reproduce here! - Oh yes I can :- "COэ" . I can correct this but if you can sort out the other refs I will be most grateful. Advice will be welcome.--Osborne 08:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

A general practice: If we have read source 1, and source 2 is cited there, and we also need to cite 2 as it appears in 1 -- credits must go to 1 because it's not the original text (it is perhaps already rephrased and repetitive rephrasing may yield unnoticed distortion). Of course, after we also read 2 and confirm contents, we can do it either way. -- So I believe that Irvine & Chamberlain can be simply referenced instead of listing them in '===Identification==='; Blunden et al. do not need a reference at all because if someone needs that data, it can be found in Irvine & Chamberlain. saimhe 17:34, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
For these small numbers (subscripts), there is the <sub></sub> HTML tag. There are some Unicode equivalents but they are messy, less portable and readable (just look at these and especially their source: x₁ x₂ x₃ x₄) so not worth trying. saimhe 17:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
For Osborne, although I am very new to Wikipedia, I really tried to read first some of the basics. In particular citations are critical. Here is a quick explanation how to cite references and proper formatting Wikipedia:Citing_sources/example_style. Formatting is here Help:Wikitext
--Daniel Vaulot 19:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] wikification

This article seems to have a lot of bulleted information. I propose that it be marked for wikification. G.bargsnaffle 14:47, 25 November 2006 (UTC) Jolly good! Look forward to see what happens. May have a request for you then!!Osborne 09:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

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