THALOPHYTA
Introduction:
Thallophyta is a division of plant kingdom including primitive forms of plant life showing a simple plant
body including unicellular to large Algae, fungi and Lichens. Thallophyta (Thallophyta, Thallopgyto,
Thallobionta) are a polyphyletic group of non motile organisms traditionally described as “Thalloid
plants” with thallus relatively considered simple plants or lower plants
Characteristics of Thallophyta
Some of the important characteristics of Thallophyta are:
- Thallophyta sex organ are single celled
- Once fertilization is done or over there is formation of an embryo
- They have no vascular tissues (phloem or xylem)
- They’re are mainly found in wet or moist environment
- They store food in the form of starch
- They are among the most primitive plant
- Their body is not differentiated into leaves, stem or roots
- Thallophyta consist of two major groups: Algae and Fungi.
ALGAE
Characteristics of Algae:
- they’re green thallophyte
- they’re usually aquatic plants
- they’re autotrophic
- they have cellulose in their cell wall
- they do not reproduce by seed
- they range from microscopic unicellular to multicellular seaweeds
- majority of them have prolonged haploid and diploid phase
CLASSIFICATION OF ALGAE
Algae are classified based on some criteria such as:
- the photosynthetic pigment they contain,
- the structure of the their flagella.
Base on their photosynthetic pigment, every algae contain chlorophyll A and B, carotene. In some algae
pigment of pigment of chemically distinct group such Phycobilins are found. It has however been
revealed that algae that contain similar pigment show resemblance in the chemical nature of their cell
wall and their reserve and the morphology of their cell spore and gametes:
Algae is divided into two major divisions:
Procaryota and Eucaryota.
The Procaryota.
Characteristics of Procaryota:
- they’re the procaryotic algae or the blue green algae
- they contain only one class called Myxophyceae or Cyanophyceae or the Cyanobacteria.
- most members are aquatic - most members are unicellular while some exist as a colony or filamentous
- most members are composed of mucopeptides (mucopeptide are substances in which amino acids are
bonded with sugar molecules)
- they’ve other features of the Procaryotic organisms such as absence nuclear envelope etc.
- they reproduce by fission
- other pigments found in their chlorophyll lamellae include: Xanthophylls (yellow), carotene (yellow-
orange) phycocyanin (blue) and phycoerythrin (red)
Examples of blue green algae are:
- The Chrococcus sp and Gloeocapsa sp. which are found in fresh water.
- The Microcystis dp. Which are found usually in sewage ponds.
- The Nostoc app. Which have the ability to fix nitrogen in the soil.
- The Anabaena which are found in wet rocks or tree trunk.
The Eucaryota:
these are the true algae with the following sub division
1. Chlorophyta: it is made up of three classes: chlorophyceae, prasinophyceae and charophyceae. The
class chlorophyceae is divided into different orders
- Volvocales: they have large hollow coenobium with thousands of cells eg. Pandorina, Volvox sp.
- Chlamydomonadales: they are motile with two whiplash flagella at the anterior end of the cell. Eg.
Chlamydomonas
- Ulotricales: they’re filamentous eg. Ulotrix
- Ulvales: members are mostly marine dwellers eg. Ulva
- Oedogomiales: their life cycle is haplontic eg. Oedogonium sp.
- Zygnematales: they have no flagella. Eg. Spirogyra
- Chlorococales: they are unicellular and non motile eg. Chlorococcus
- Caulerpales: They are marine dwellers and usually attached to rocks eg. Caulerpales
2. Euglenophyata: they have one class called euglenophyceae, they’re unicellular and motile eg. Euglena.
3. Bacillariophyta: they contain one class call bacillariophyceae, their cell wall is composed of silica and
partly of pectin. They’re the diatoms (golden-brown)
4. Chrysophyta: they contain two classes: the chrysophyceae and haptophyceae. They’re unicellular with
no cellulose.
5. Phaeophyta: they have three classes: Isogeneratae, heterogenerate and cyclospora
6. Rhodophyta: they have one class: rhodophyceae. They’re the red algae.
Economic important of Algae:
- source of food for man
- source of food for fish
- algae as source of water contamination
- Algae for industrial products
- Source of fertilizer
- Source of essential minerals
Reproduction in Algae:
Asexual reproduction by
- fission
-sporeformation (two spores are formed: motile spore called zoospores and non motile which are
aplanospores and
- fragmentation.
Sexual reproduction: this exist in three ways: isogamy, anisogamy and Oogamy.
- In syngame two gametes of the same size, shape, behavior and structure fuse together.
- In anisogamy one gamete is larger than the other.
- Oogamy is the fusion of a larger, non motile gamete with a smaller gamete which maybe motile or non
motile.
life cycle in algae are of three types:
haplontic, diplontic and haplodiplontic.
- In haplontic the vegetative stage of the organism is haploid.
- In haplodiplontic the vegetative stage is produce in both the haploid and diploid.
- In diplontic the vegetative stage is produced in the diploid phase
