What are dinoflagellate blooms?
Blooms of dinoflagellates produce “red tides” which injure marine life. The most dramatic effect of dinoflagellates on their environment occurs in coastal waters during the warmer season, usually mid to late summer.
What does a Venus flytrap eat?
The Venus flytrap gets some of its nutrients from the soil, but to supplement its diet, the plant eats insects and arachnids. Ants, beetles, grasshoppers, flying insects, and spiders are all victims of the flytrap. It can take a Venus flytrap three to five days to digest an organism, and it may go months between meals.
Are Venus flytraps asexual?
The Venus’ Flytrap reproduces both sexually and asexually. It produces a flower which is held on a tall stock keeping the pollinators away from the leaves. It also reproduces via a rhizome.
Where do dinoflagellates bloom?
Diatoms and dinoflagellates are most common in the coastal oceans but also have the ability to live in freshwater environments and in intermediate salinity environments where fresh and marine waters mix in estuaries. They are the most prolific group of primary producers in the ocean.
How does a dinoflagellate reproduce?
Dinoflagellates such as Alexandrium usually reproduce by asexual fission: One cell grows and then divides into two cells, then two into four, four into eight, and so on.
How do dinoflagellate eat?
Many dinoflagellates are photosynthetic, manufacturing their own food using the energy from sunlight, and providing a food source for other organisms. The photosynthetic dinoflagellates are important primary producers in coastal waters.
How fast do Venus flytraps grow?
The Venus fly trap can reach a height of 4 to 5 inches in about two to four years.
Does a Venus flytrap have a brain?
Although it lacks a brain, the carnivorous plant Dionaea muscipula has a functional short-term memory system. Researchers working in plant biology found that not only does the plant better known as the Venus flytrap know when an insect lands inside a leaf, but it can also “remember” when it arrived.
What is a fun fact about dinoflagellates?
90% of all dinoflagellates are found living in the ocean. They are better referred to as algae and there are nearly 2000 known living species. What makes them so remarkable is that the dinoflagellates you will witness on your tour can glow in the dark – they are bioluminescent!
How long can dinoflagellates last?
If you can’t maintain sterile culture conditions, the cells could last only a few weeks to a month before bacteria overgrow the culture. Illumination with cool-white fluorescent or LED bulbs. Shop lights work well. Light cycle (12 hr each light, dark).
What makes dinoflagellate unique?
Dinoflagellates (Division or Phylum Pyrrhophyta) are a group of primarily unicellular organisms united by a suite of unique characteristics, including flagellar insertion, pigmentation, organelles, and features of the nucleus, that distinguishes them from other groups.
How does the dinoflagellate move?
They are motile. Dinoflagellates swim by means of two flagella, movable protein and microtubule strands that propel the cell through the water. The longitudinal flagellum extends out from the sulcal groove of the hypotheca (posterior part of cell); when it whips back and forth it propels the cell forward.
How do plants fart?
If you define fart as the Merriam-Webster dictionary does—to expel intestinal gas from the anus—then no, plants don’t fart, because they don’t have anuses. However, they do expel gas (including methane, a greenhouse gas found in human and animal farts), so they basically fart in their own plantlike way.
Does a Venus flytrap hurt?
If you put the tip of your finger in the flytrap’s bug eating mouth, it will quickly snap shut, but it won’t hurt at all. In fact, it will only tickle a little bit since it’s “teeth” are really more like eyelash hairs than teeth.
How did the Venus flytrap get its name?
Origins of the Venus flytrap In that letter, Ellis named it Dionaea muscipula after the Greek goddess Diana (who the Romans called Venus) and muscipula — Latin for ‘mousetrap’. The anatomy of the plant is fascinating too. Its evolutionary history isn’t entirely known since the plant hasn’t been fossilized as such.
How long do dinoflagellates live for?
They are miniature time capsules When their environmental conditions get too tough, they can form tough little cysts that can survive in the sediment of their water as fossils for as long as 100 years. Once conditions improve, the dinoflagellates can reanimate.
What is a dinoflagellate?
If you choose to go on one of our Florida bioluminescence tours, you should be lucky enough to witness one of nature’s most beautiful phenomenon – dinoflagellates. Dinoflagellates are single-cell organisms that can be found in streams, rivers, and freshwater ponds. 90% of all dinoflagellates are found living in the ocean.
Do dinoflagellates reproduce asexually?
Dinoflagellates mainly reproduce asexually via binary fission, but some species reproduce sexually and form resting cysts. Their nutrition varies from autotrophy (photosynthesis) to heterotrophy (absorption of organic matter) to mixotrophy (autotrophic cells engulf prey organisms).
Why do dinoflagellates emit blue light?
When the water around them is disturbed, certain types of dinoflagellates will emit a bright, blue light – an action which experts believe is either designed to confuse any prey nearby, or to attract other, larger organisms that are further up the food chain to the area, thus potentially eating what is threatening the dinoflagellates!