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Squeezing a piece of Sphagnum moss from a local bog into a small container in the spring time always produces a large quantity of algae, diatoms, rotifers, copepods, protoists etc., a lot of which I’m not familiar with and recent sample produced some algal structures that I hadn’t seen before.
I’m sure many on this forum are familiar with conjugate filamentous algae but I’ll summarise what I have learnt for those who aren’t. I have read that it’s quite rare to find these algae “conjugating” in the wild - I’m not sure how rare it is but there aren’t many images on-line. It's impossible to visually identify this algae to species in the vegetative stage but when the zygospores are present, and you have access to a key, it's possible - this is Mougeotia viridis.
Mougeotia is a genus of filamentous algae (as is the more familiar Spirogyra) that reproduces sexually by conjugation. In its normal vegetative state it consists of long single strands of cylindrical cells containing chloroplasts. To reproduce, adjacent strands fuse at a point along their length and form a “conjugation tube”, the cell contents nearest to the conjugation tube then appear to migrate into the tube where the genetic material is mixed and a zygospore is formed.
The filaments are 6-8 microns across and the zygospores are 25 -30 microns across.
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Mougeotia viridis conjugating
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100x Oil Objective
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Formation of the conjugation tube and migration of cell contents.
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Formation of zygospore still attached to filaments.
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Maturing zygospore.
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Mature detached zygospore.
Conjugating Mougeotia viridis - filamentous algae
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- rjlittlefield
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Re: Conjugating Mougeotia viridis - filamentous algae
Very nicely found, photographed, and explained -- thanks!
--Rik
--Rik
Re: Conjugating Mougeotia viridis - filamentous algae
Very impressive work and very interesting as well.
Re: Conjugating Mougeotia viridis - filamentous algae
Very nice.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing.
Re: Conjugating Mougeotia viridis - filamentous algae
Thanks for the comments.
Dave
Dave
Re: Conjugating Mougeotia viridis - filamentous algae
As others have said - great, thanks for posting these.
Chris R
Re: Conjugating Mougeotia viridis - filamentous algae
Thanks Chris.
- Robert Berdan
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Re: Conjugating Mougeotia viridis - filamentous algae
Interesting photos. I sometimes find desmids when squeezing moss next to a lake, but never seen the structures you show - very nice images.
Cheers
RB
Cheers
RB