Chlorophyta


Chlorophyta or Prasinophyta is a taxon of green algae informally called chlorophytes. The name is used in two very different senses, so care is needed to determine the use by a particular author. In older classification systems, it refers to a highly paraphyletic group of all the green algae within the green plants and thus includes about 7,000 species of mostly aquatic photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. In newer classifications, it refers to the sister of the streptophytes/charophytes. The clade Streptophyta consists of the Charophyta in which the Embryophyta emerged. In this sense the Chlorophyta includes only about 4,300 species. About 90% of all known species live in freshwater.
Like the land plants, green algae contain chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b and store food as starch in their plastids.
With the exception of Palmophyllophyceae, Trebouxiophyceae, Ulvophyceae and Chlorophyceae, which show various degrees of multicellularity, all the Chlorophyta lineages are unicellular. Some members of the group form symbiotic relationships with protozoa, sponges, and cnidarians. Others form symbiotic relationships with fungi to form lichens, but the majority of species are free-living. Some conduct sexual reproduction, which is oogamous or isogamous. All members of the clade have motile flagellated swimming cells. While most species live in freshwater habitats and a large number in marine habitats, other species are adapted to a wide range of land environments. For example, Chlamydomonas nivalis, which causes Watermelon snow, lives on summer alpine snowfields. Others, such as Trentepohlia species, live attached to rocks or woody parts of trees. Monostroma kuroshiense, an edible green alga cultivated worldwide and most expensive among green algae, belongs to this group.

Ecology

Species of Chlorophyta are common inhabitants of marine, freshwater and terrestrial environments. Several species have adapted to specialised and extreme environments, such as deserts, arctic environments, hypersaline habitats, marine deep waters, deep-sea hydrothermal vents and habitats that experiences extreme changes in temperature, light and salinity. Some groups, such as the Trentepohliales are exclusively found on land. Several species of Chlorophyta live in symbiosis with a diverse range of eukaryotes, including fungi, ciliates, forams, cnidarians and molluscs.
Some species of Chlorophyta are heterotrophic, either free-living or parasitic. Two common species of the heterotrophic green alga Prototheca are pathogenic and can cause the disease protothecosis in humans and animals.

Classifications

Characteristics used for the classification of Chlorophyta are: type of zoid, mitosis, cytokinesis, organization level, life cycle, type of gametes, cell wall polysaccharides and more recently genetic data.

Phylogeny

A newer proposed classification follows Leliaert et al. 2011 and modified with Silar 2016, Leliaert 2016 and Lopes dos Santos et al. 2017 for the green algae clades and Novíkov & Barabaš-Krasni 2015 for the land plants clade. Sánchez-Baracaldo et al. is followed for the basal clades.

Leliaert ''et al''. 2012

Simplified phylogeny of the Chlorophyta, according to Leliaert et al. 2012. Note that many algae previously classified in Chlorophyta are placed here in Streptophyta.
A possible classification when Chlorophyta refers to one of the two clades of the Viridiplantae is shown below.
Classification of the Chlorophyta, treated as all green algae, according to Hoek, Mann and Jahns 1995.
In a note added in proof, an alternative classification is presented for the algae of the class Chlorophyceae:
Classification of the Chlorophyta and Charophyta according to Bold and Wynne 1985.
Classification of the Chlorophyta according to Mattox & Stewart 1984:
Classification of the Chlorophyta according to Fott 1971.
Classification of the Chlorophyta and related algae according to Round 1971.
Classification of the Chlorophyta according to Smith 1938:
In February 2020, the fossilized remains of green algae, named Proterocladus antiquus were discovered in the northern province of Liaoning, China. At around a billion years old, it is believed to be one of the oldest examples of a multicellular chlorophyte.