Welcome to You Ask Andy

  Dick Wright  age 9. of Clintonville. Wis

What are algae?

Most of the algae are water plants. Some have giant fronds waving hundred of  feet through the water. But most of the algae are so‑ small that we cannot see the single plants except through a microsoope. These tiny algae tend to mass together. We see them as green scum on water‑logged tree trunks.  They also form the; stuff we call frog spittle floating on the­ face of a still pond.

The algae family is divided into four branches. The branches are named for the color of the plants. All of them have green plant coloring, but certain of them have other colors which mask the green.

The red algae are a brownish red color. The Red Sea gets its color from billions of tiny red algae floating its waters. Another red alga thrives in the snow. The snow of the alpine regions is often colored rosy by red algae. These plants live  on the sunlit surface of the snows.

The blue‑green algae are the simplest of all plants. They often team up with a fungus to form a blue‑green lichen. The brown seaweeds you see on the beach are brown algae. The word algae is from a Latin word for seaweed„ And most  though not all. of the seaweeds belong to the algae plant family.

The fresh water algae help to feed the frogs and fishes in ponds and streams. And life in the big oceans would be impossible without the algae. Like all green plants they use sunlight to manufacture food In the process. they give off oxygen into the water. The fish and other sea creatures need free oxygen in the water for their breathing. Much of the free oxygen in the ocean is provided by the seaweeds and other algae plants.

Big fish eat smaller fish and smaller fish eat those even smaller. The smallest fish dine on tiny. 'one celled algae plants floating in the water. And the big baleen whale. biggest ~ animal in the world. feeds on a diet of tiny sea creatures mixed with tiny algae. So, without the algae,  most fish would die of starvation if they did not die of suffocation first.

Fortunately' there is no shortage of algae in the world. There are patches in the oceans where the seaweeds are thick as grassy meadows. There is an area as big as a continent in the middle of the Atlantic called the Sargasso Sea. This patch of water is so thick with seaweed that the plants tangle around ships.

Biggest of the algae is the ocean‑dwelling kelp. Some of these plants have a holdfast which fixes them to the floor of the ocean. Their long fronds trail hundreds of feet through the water. These plants thrive in the Pacific Ocean. Places where this algae grows very dense are called kelp groves.

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