Is Anabaena a filament?

Some groups of cyanobacteria (including Anabaena) grow in a filamentous fashion, where each cell division occurs along the same axis, leading to chains that can be hundreds of cells long.

How does Anabaena perform photosynthesis?

They perform oxygenic photosynthesis, very similar to that of eukaryotic plants and algae, by utilizing water as a reductant source, consequently producing molecular oxygen.

What are the characteristics of Anabaena?

Anabaena has uniseriate, straight, curved, or coiled trichomes that may be constricted at the cell walls. The blue-green to yellow-green colored cells may be spherical, ellipsoidal, cylindrical, or bent, but overall look much like a string of beads. Some species have soft and colorless mucilage.

How do you identify Anabaena?

According to the accepted morphological and ecological descriptions by Desikachary (1959), the genus Anabaena is identified based on the “Presence of uniform trichomes, absence of sheath or presence of more or less diffluent sheath forming free or floccose or soft mucilaginous thallus.

What is filament in cyanobacteria?

Each filament is represented by an unbranched chain of cells. A chain of cells is called the trichome, and it appears like a string of beads. This is surrounded by a mucilaginous sheath to form a filament. The cells are spherical or oval in shape.

What is the structure of Anabaena?

10.4. Anabaena cells are filamentous with solitary filaments and are in free clusters or in macroscopic mats. Cells are cylindrical, barrel-shaped, or spherical; shorter up to longer than wide (2–10 μm in diameter) and are pale or bright blue-green or olive-green.

Is Anabaena photosynthetic?

Anabaena circinalis is a species of Gram-negative, photosynthetic cyanobacteria common to freshwater environments throughout the world.

Does Anabaena have chlorophyll?

Non-pathogenic: Anabaena is categorized as cyanobacteria. This bacterium doesn’t have chloroplasts but does possess the pigment chlorophyll a, which allows oxygenic photosynthesis.

What color is Anabaena?

blue-green algae
Anabaena, genus of nitrogen-fixing blue-green algae with beadlike or barrel-like cells and interspersed enlarged spores (heterocysts), found as plankton in shallow water and on moist soil.

What does Anabaena look like?

Anabaena, genus of nitrogen-fixing blue-green algae with beadlike or barrel-like cells and interspersed enlarged spores (heterocysts), found as plankton in shallow water and on moist soil. There are both solitary and colonial forms, the latter resembling a closely related genus, Nostoc.

Is Anabaena photosynthetic autotrophs?

Cyanobacteria like Nostoc and Anabaena are chemosynthetic autotrophs. Cyanobacterial colonies are generally surrounded by a gelatinous sheath. They are unicellular, filamentous and terrestrial/marine organisms. Some of these organisms can fix nitrogen in specialized cells called heterocysts.