Algae

Marine algae of the Cape Peninsula and False Bay

Marine algae of the Cape Peninsula and False Bay, South Africa: seaweed communities at the Benguela-Agulhas transition, with Ecklonia maxima kelp forests, peak South African seaweed richness, and contrasting Atlantic versus False Bay floras.

Mesophyllum

Mesophyllum is a genus of calcified crustose red algae in the family Hapalidiaceae, established by Marie Lemoine in 1928 and found from temperate Northern Hemisphere waters to the Mediterranean.

Microcystin

Microcystins are a family of more than 250 cyclic heptapeptide liver toxins produced by cyanobacteria during blooms, named after Microcystis aeruginosa and first characterized in the early 1980s.

Navicula

Navicula is a genus of boat-shaped biraphid diatoms, single-celled algae with silica cell walls, drastically revised since the late 1970s and used in stream water-quality assessment.

Nodularia spumigena

Nodularia spumigena is a filamentous, nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterium of the order Nostocales that forms toxic summer blooms in brackish waters, most prominently the Baltic Sea, and produces the liver toxin nodularin.

Nori

Nori (海苔; kim in Korea, zicai in China) is dried sheet-form red seaweed of Porphyra/Pyropia used to wrap sushi, with 30-50% protein, produced mainly in Japan, Korea, and China.

Norimaki (海苔巻)

Norimaki (海苔巻) is Japanese rolled sushi: vinegared rice and filling rolled in a dried nori seaweed sheet, as futomaki, hosomaki, or temaki. Nori cultivation began in Edo in the late 1600s; Drew-Baker's 1949 conchocelis discovery stabilized the industry.

Palmaria palmata

Palmaria palmata, dulse (duileasc), is an edible North Atlantic red alga (Palmariaceae) used as food since the fifth century; protein-rich (up to ~22% winter), omega-3 containing, moderately iodine-rich, and a leading cereal alternative in food and feed.

Phycology

Phycology (algology) is the study of algae, from Greek phykos, seaweed. It covers algal taxonomy, cryptic species, 14 phyla and 63 classes, harmful bloom monitoring, and omics-based ecology.

Phytoplankton

Phytoplankton (microalgae) are microscopic drifting photosynthetic organisms in fresh and salt water, including cyanobacteria, diatoms, dinoflagellates, and coccolithophores; they produce about half of Earth's oxygen and pump roughly 10 gigatonnes of carbon yearly into the deep ocean.

Red algae

Red algae (Rhodophyta) are mostly marine multicellular seaweeds, about 7,276 described marine species, colored by phycobiliprotein pigments, lacking flagellated cells, and the source of agar and carrageenan.

Oct 20, 2026

Saccharina japonica

Saccharina japonica (formerly Laminaria japonica), kombu or haidai kelp, a large cold-water brown alga native to the NW Pacific, transferred to Saccharina in 2006, and the world's most cultivated seaweed, with China producing 89.4% of the global total.

Saccharina latissima

Saccharina latissima, known as sugar kelp or sea belt, is a brown seaweed of the Northern Hemisphere, the most farmed kelp species in Europe and North America.

Sarcothalia crispata

Sarcothalia crispata (luga negra), a red alga (Gigartinaceae) endemic to Chile from Valparaíso to Tierra del Fuego and also in Argentina, harvested since the 1960s for its kappa-lambda carrageenan and studied for cultivation and heavy-metal bioindication.

Oct 22, 2026

Sargasso

Sargasso is a term for the floating brown algae of the genus Sargassum, by extension the Sargasso Sea, the Caribbean literary journal founded in 1984, and other works.

Sargassum

Sargassum is a genus of over 500 species of brown seaweed that floats by gas-filled pneumatocysts; holopelagic forms live only in the Atlantic's Sargasso Sea, and since 2011 the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt has caused record Caribbean inundations.

Scenedesmus

Scenedesmus is a genus of freshwater green algae that forms flat colonies of usually four or eight cells, common in nutrient-rich ponds, lakes, and soil.

Seaweed

Seaweed, also known as macroalgae, is the everyday term for large marine algae used as food, fertilizer, and a source of hydrocolloids like agar and carrageenan.

Seaweed-derived calcium

Seaweed-derived calcium (algal calcium, Aquamin) is dietary calcium from calcified red seaweed such as Lithothamnion, GRAS-notified as GRN 28 for food fortification up to 4.0 percent.

Solazyme

Solazyme was an American biotechnology company founded in 2003 in South San Francisco that grew microalgae in fermentation tanks to make tailored oils, proteins, and food ingredients.

Spirogyra

Spirogyra is a genus of unbranched filamentous freshwater green algae (Zygnemataceae) with spiral ribbon chloroplasts, reproducing by conjugation; 400-plus species, closest algal relatives of land plants, also called pond silk.

Stromatolite

Stromatolites: layered organosedimentary structures built by microbial mats trapping sediment and precipitating minerals; Earth's dominant early-life fossil record, from disputed 3.7 Ga Isua examples to living Shark Bay and Bahamas reefs, and a key Mars analog.

Tabellaria

Tabellaria is a genus of freshwater diatoms, single-celled algae with silica cell walls, that forms zig-zag colonies and is widely used in paleolimnology to reconstruct past lake acidity.

Ulkenia microalgal oil

Ulkenia microalgal oil, DHA-rich oil from the thraustochytrid Ulkenia sp. (strain SAM2179), about 45% DHA; GRAS in the US (GRN 319, 2010) and an authorized EU novel food.

Ulva lactuca

Ulva lactuca (sea lettuce) is a green macroalga in Ulvaceae, type species of the genus Ulva, described by Linnaeus in 1753; thin two-layered edible blades, worldwide coastal distribution, used as food, feed, biofuel feedstock, and pollution bioindicator.