Marine Plants

Marine plants.

A. Introduction.

1. Plants are the real producers in the biological habitat in that they are the only organisms capable of elaborating complex organic substances from the simple inorganic compounds dissolved in water.

2. Without marine plants as synthesizers of primary food, the development of animal life in the oceans would have been severely restricted to a negligible quantity able to be supported only along the shoreline and in estuaries.

B. Notable feature of marine plants is the dearth of variety, as is evident from a quick glance at the table below.

Table 3. Kind of Plants in the Sea

Division	# of species	% marine	size	occurrence
Chlorophyta (green algae)	7000	13	micro-massive	benthos
Charophyta	76	13	macroscopic	benthos in brackish waters
Euglenophyta	40	3	micro/unicell	benthos in mud in shallow waters
Chrysophyta
(Gold-brown)	650	20	micro/unicell	plankton
Coccolithophores	200	96	micro/unicell	plankton
(Diatoms)	6000-10000	30-50	micro/unicell	plankton or benthos
Xanthophyta	60	15	macroscopic filamentous	benthos in mud
Pyrrophyta (dinoflagellates)	1100	93	micro/unicell	plankton
Phaeophyta (brown algae)	1500	99.7	micro-massive	benthos
Rhodophyta (red algae)	4000	98	micro-massive	benthos
Cyanophyta blue-green algae	7500	95	micro-massive	benthos
Schizomycophyta Bacteria	1500	12	microscopic	ubiquitous
Myxomycophyta slime mold	450	0	microscopic	parasitic, if found in oceans at all
Mycophyta Fungi	75000	0.4	microscopic	benthos
Mycophyta Lichens	16000	0.1	microscopic	high intertidal
Bryophyta Mosses	25000	0	macroscopic	none
Tracheophyta Ferns	10000	0	macro-massive	none
Angiosperms flowering, rooted, seed-bearing plants	250,000	0.018	macro-massive	benthos, all grasses