Talk:Algae

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Algae article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Add new text under old text. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Start a new topic Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2Auto-archiving period: 3 months

This  level-3 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Algae Top‑importance This article is part of WikiProject Algae, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the photosynthetic organisms commonly called algae and related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.AlgaeWikipedia:WikiProject AlgaeTemplate:WikiProject AlgaeAlgae Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. Protista Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Protista, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of protists and protistology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ProtistaWikipedia:WikiProject ProtistaTemplate:WikiProject ProtistaProtista Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. Plants Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Plants, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of plants and botany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PlantsWikipedia:WikiProject PlantsTemplate:WikiProject Plantsplant Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. Environment Mid‑importance This environment-related article is part of the WikiProject Environment to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the environment. The aim is to write neutral and well-referenced articles on environment-related topics, as well as to ensure that environment articles are properly categorized. Read Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ and leave any messages at the project talk page.EnvironmentWikipedia:WikiProject EnvironmentTemplate:WikiProject EnvironmentEnvironment Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Limnology and Oceanography High‑importance This article is part of the WikiProject Limnology and Oceanography to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the inland waters and marine environments. The aim is to write neutral and well-referenced articles on limnology- or oceanography-related topics, as well as to ensure that limnology and oceanography articles are properly categorized. Read Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ and leave any messages at the project talk page.Limnology and OceanographyWikipedia:WikiProject Limnology and OceanographyTemplate:WikiProject Limnology and OceanographyLimnology and Oceanography High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Food and drink Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Food and drink, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of food and drink related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Food and drinkWikipedia:WikiProject Food and drinkTemplate:WikiProject Food and drinkFood and drink Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Food and Drink task list: edit history watch purge To edit this page, select here Here are some tasks you can do for WikiProject Food and drink: Help bring these Top Importance articles currently B Status or below up to GA status: Agaricus bisporus (i.e. mushroom), Beef, Bread, Curry, Drink, Food, Ham and eggs, Soy sauce, Sushi, Yogurt Bring these Top Importance articles currently at GA status up to FA status: Beer, French cuisine, Sugar Bring these High Importance articles currently at GA status up to FA status: Apple, Burger King, Fish Participate in project-related deletion discussions. Delete unrelated trivia sections found in articles. Please review WP:Trivia and WP:Handling trivia to learn how to do this. Add the {{WikiProject Food and drink}} project banner to food and drink related articles and content to help bring them to the attention of members. For a complete list of banners for WikiProject Food and drink and its child projects, select here. Provide photographs and images for Category:Wikipedia requested images of food Consider joining this project's Assessment task force. List any project ideas in this section Note: These lists are transcluded from the project's tasks pages. Microbiology Top‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Microbiology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Microbiology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MicrobiologyWikipedia:WikiProject MicrobiologyTemplate:WikiProject MicrobiologyMicrobiology Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale. Tree of Life High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Tree of Life, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of taxonomy and the phylogenetic tree of life on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Tree of LifeWikipedia:WikiProject Tree of LifeTemplate:WikiProject Tree of Lifetaxonomic High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 5 January 2022 and 4 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Osad3840 (article contribs).

We should remember that algae are specifically capable of performing oxygenic photosynthesis, which excludes anoxygenic photosynthesis seen in purple bacteria and other prokaryotes. — Snoteleks (talk) 13:06, 19 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

alga /ælɡə/ ⓘ AL-gə) is an informal term for any organisms of a large and diverse group of photosynthetic organisms that are not land plants, and includes species from multiple distinct clades. Alga should be algae in sentence two Nico askew (talk) 17:52, 5 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I understand that algae is one of the stupidest biological terms still around, but why are they excluded? RenaMoonn (talk) 20:28, 17 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

@User:Snoteleks Chlorarachniophyta are included in the AlgaeBase, but not as phylum. Class Chlorarachniophyceae (with 20 species) is included into phylum Cercozoa. In the same phylum the three Paulinella species are listed which perform the oxygenic photosynthesis (P. chromatophora, P. micropora and P. longichromatophora) with plastids with very specific origin, independent of all other chloroplasts. Are you sure, that all these algae were "omitted" (as written in the note)? Are their numbers not included in the last row with the strange name "Incertae sedis etc." (what etc. means?) Petr Karel (talk) 15:13, 22 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Petr Karel I haven't considered that possibility. I'll go check that. — Snoteleks (talk) 15:36, 22 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Petr Karel Hey, so I took a look and the situation is very weird. Within the 2024 paper there are a lot of inconsistencies between Table 1 with all the phyla and the individual phylum tables (e.g., Charophyta has 5644 total described species and 4940 living species in Table 1, but 5583 and 4879 in Table 3). The "Incertae sedis etc." row is never mentioned in the text, so there is no way to know what the author included as those.

Judging by the number of species (2995), it could be that all protozoa listed in AlgaeBase are counted in this row, since a lot of Rhizaria appear in the database down to species level, not just Paulinella or chlorarachniophytes.

It could also be that only truly incertae sedis taxa are listed here, as it is unknown whether they belong to one algal phylum or another, or even if they are really algae (e.g., the fossil Chisibyllites kerguelensis, listed as Retaria incertae sedis). This would be consistent with Table 8 in the 2024 paper, where the 2995 species are listed as belonging to kingdom "Incertae" instead of any combination of the four other kingdoms.

Another possibility is that Incertae sedis in that table only refers to fossil taxa, since the "living species" column is empty for this row; only the "species" column is filled with a number.

It's honestly impossible to know for certain, and the numbers themselves are not as reliable as it seemed considering their variation between tables. Either we assume that "Incertae sedis etc." are just fossil taxa, or we assume that it's wrongly classifying protozoa as algae, and therefore we should probably find better references for each phylum instead. — Snoteleks (talk) 17:09, 22 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Petr Karel Nevermind, the answer was in table 8 all along. It explicitly divides all species by kingdom into fossil and living, and the 2995 species listed as kingdom "Incertae" are all under the "Fossil" column. Chlorarachniophytes cannot be included here, because they are all living species. — Snoteleks (talk) 17:10, 22 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Am I looking in the same place (here)? I see 2995 incertae species with 2475 fossil and no entry under living.  —  Jts1882 | talk  17:31, 22 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Jts1882 Oh huh, you're right, it says 2475 fossils and no living species, despite the total being larger. This is getting even stranger. I honestly don't know what to make of it, but I personally prefer to assume that chlorarachniophytes are not included until proven otherwise. — Snoteleks (talk) 22:06, 22 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

If you check the counts in table 8 there are errors. The species total column underestimates the fossil+living count for the four kingdoms. The missing species number is the same as the extra 520 in the incertae sedis species total. It's as if some living species are assign to kingdoms for living column but are incertae sedis in the total species columm. The totals for the species total column and the summed fossil and living columns are the same (61145). Not sure this helps the main question.  —  Jts1882 | talk  14:05, 24 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well, if anything, it helps knowing that the paper is not very reliable. I'm sure they're still a good approximation, but ideally we should use more accurate ones. I don't even know how Michael Guiry got those numbers in the first place; he runs AlgaeBase, so perhaps he has an algorithm that displays the number of entries automatically for him according to kingdom, phylum and order, but I don't know of any method to do the same as a user. — Snoteleks (talk) 01:12, 25 May 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am writing this in case my edit to the British pronunciation is challenged. I remember hearing "AL-jee" in the 1964 film Children of the Damned uttered in Received pronunciation which is the standard British accent. I have heard "AL-ghee" in real life but this led me to check some editions of the Oxford English Dictionary, whose pronunciation guide is based on RP although they do occasionally include other common pronunciations, from the 2000s and they recognise "AL-jee" as the primary pronunciation which has led to my decision to edit this article based on the use of "UK also" in Amsterdam.Tk420 (talk) 18:51, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well, I'm British and I would say that although the general public may use "j" in my experience biologists use the hard g. This is also consistent with the singular: "alga" always has hard g, so it's odd to change in the plural. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:55, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

"Algae ... is an informal term for any organisms of a large and diverse group of photosynthetic organisms that are not plants ..."

ChatGPT: Yeah, that line on Wikipedia is a bit misleading if you read it literally. It’s trying to capture the informal usage: Botanists often say “plants” = land plants only (embryophytes). Under that definition, algae are not plants. Phylogenetically though, green algae and red algae are in the same clade (Archaeplastida) as land plants, so many biologists do include them in the kingdom Plantae (just not “land plants”). So the tension is: Everyday/Informal definition → “Algae = photosynthetic organisms that aren’t ‘real’ plants (the land ones).” Modern taxonomy → Some algae are Plantae (green & red algae), some are Chromista, some are Protists, some are Bacteria.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlamydomonas Chlamydomonas ... is a genus of green algae Kingdom: Plantae Darsie42 (talk) 08:54, 9 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

That is not good. It does link to the plant article which describes the different usage of the term plant, which does include being restricted to land plants. I think changing the lede to say land plants would be correct. The ChatGTP answer isn't entirely correct either as it's not just a informal versus formal difference.  —  Jts1882 | talk  09:14, 9 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Darsie42 There is a strong tendency among certain biologists to group algae with land plants and call them plants, but there is no biological basis for this. It's just a relic from when all plant-like organisms (even fungi) were considered plants. Nowadays, Kingdom Plantae has a more reduced usage, but it is still equivalent to Archaeplastida, a group containing at the very least red algae, glaucophytes, and green algae. Green algae are the closest relatives of plants, so some people group them as "green plants". The concept of "plant", as you might already be seeing, is very vague and can be stricter or more inclusive depending on the author. Therefore it is absolutely true that some algae are still considered plants today. — Snoteleks (talk) 12:02, 9 September 2025 (UTC)Reply

The lead of this article (as with several others) has been poorly edited with an absurd amount of "lead engineering" to increase length, complexity, and add materials not in the body of the article. All that violates WP:LEAD which requires a short, simple summary of the rest of the article. The lead was already rather difficult before that editing, and contained citations. It may be the time to rewrite the lead altogether in keeping with the policy in WP:LEAD. The first paragraph in particular should be suitable for schoolchildren to read. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:23, 15 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

The lede in this article says:

"Algae are polyphyletic as they do not share a common ancestor."

This definition is misleading because all algae do share a common ancestor, it's just not in the algae taxon. I'd clarify this myself, but I don't know how to phrase it succinctly. Could somebody fix this? NumelCase (talk) 19:42, 4 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

I think the edit I made is sufficient in context. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:48, 5 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

That seems good. Thanks! NumelCase (talk) 21:53, 5 July 2026 (UTC)Reply