Ask a Teacher

Search



How did unicellular algae form?

Algae can form anywhere there is enough moisture in. It's a spore that in the atmosphere and when it lands in water, it begins to grow rapidly. The earliest life-forms on this planet are thought to be early ancestors of cyanobacteria, a type of algae formerly called blue-green algae. Fossilized cyanobacteria have been found in rocks more than 3 billion years old. These early algae formed when there was no oxygen in the atmosphere, and scientists theorize that as the algae photosynthesized, they released oxygen as a byproduct, which eventually accumulated in the atmosphere. Algae were probably the first organisms capable of photosynthesis and, until the appearance of plants on earth, the only photo synthesizers for billions of years.


comments powered by Disqus