Climate change is one of the realities faced by the world in the present century. Although the post-industrial revolution comes with its world-changing benefits, it has been proven astronomically that the increase in the rate of greenhouse gas emissions has adverse effects on the planet. These effects include climate change, sea levels, precipitation, ocean temperature, surface air, coastal areas, human health, forests, agriculture, wildlife, and water resources.

One of the solutions to tackle the effects of greenhouse gas emissions is growing large quantities of algae. These photosynthetic organisms can significantly help with carbon capturing and climate change mitigation. Here we explore how algae can help deal with global climate crises.

What to Know About Algae

Algae are essential organisms found in aquatic environments with several significant benefits. Algae come in different types, including:

1. Green algae (Chlorophyta)
2. Brown algae (Phaeophyta)
3. Yellow-green algae (Xanthophyta)
4. Red algae (Rhodophyta)
5. Fire algae (Pyrrophyta)
6. Golden-brown algae and diatoms (Chrysophyta)
7. Euglenoids (Euglenophyta)

Algae is very important in aquatic ecosystems. They create the energy base of the food network for all aquatic living organisms. Besides, studies show they produce oxygen in large quantities in lakes, rivers, and oceans. Accessibility to CO2, water, phosphate, sunlight, and nitrogen is vital for algae to grow efficiently.

Since there are several algal strains, their compositions are different. And how each is cultivated can also influence the composition. Nevertheless, the algal main composition includes protein, lipids, carbohydrates, and carotenoids, such as fucoxanthin and astaxanthin, lutein, and nucleic acids. Moreover, Algae as photosynthetic organisms are characterised by:

1. The production of quality non-fuel co-products
2. High lipid accumulation
3. Excessive biomass production
4. CO2 sequestration

Sequestering carbon for growth is one of the functions of algae. With this process, they can efficiently mitigate greenhouse gasses that can cause climate change. Algae can produce biomaterials, biofuel, and bioenergy from land biomass.

The Role of Algae in Carbon Capture and Climate Change Mitigation

You should have heard the great extent of how forestation is helping the planet. It does this by slowing down global warming by reducing CO2 in the atmosphere and introducing more O2. As carbon sinks, Trees reduce CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and change it to biomass.

The paragraph above shows one of the benefits of trees to ecosystems. But the trees might not be the sole saviour in saving the earth from the global crisis. This is because forestation has its limitations and consequences. The process can lead to the following, according to a working paper published by World Research Institute (WRI):

1. Technological and scientific difficulties in measurement and monitoring
2. The displacement of farmlands
3. Limited public funding for carbon-beneficial land management

Here, algae show themselves as a saviour – looking to oceans for more effective and scalable way-outs. So, what are the uses of algae that help with carbon capture and climate change mitigation?

Carbon Sequestration

Carbon sequestration refers to the process of efficiently capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide. This method helps reduce the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere to reduce climate change. Studies have shown that the process can enhance air quality by increasing O2 concentration and decreasing CO2 levels.

Algae are more efficient than trees400 times when used in bioreactors to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Algae can handle more CO2 than trees due to their quality to cover more surface area and grow more rapidly as they produce more biomass.

How do trees and algae sequester CO2? They both do this naturally. For trees, CO2 is consumed as photosynthesis process. They absorb carbon into their roots and trunks and offer oxygen in return into the air. For algae, the same process is replicated. However, what is done differently is absorbing the carbon in the form of more algae.

Fuel

The second use of algae is for the production of biofuels. These fuels are extracted from living matters directly. With this, algae can offer a more sustainable alternative to liquid fossil fuels like petroleum. Interestingly, algae have offered more than five thousand biofuel gallons from one acre over the years.

What could make algae a remarkable renewable fuel source is its unique energy-storage system. There are algal strains that store energy in a natural oil form. The oil must be extracted to get the raw material to produce fuel for planes, trains, trucks, and cars.

Raw Material

Polymers can be created from algae. And as a replacement for plastic, they are used in 3D printing. It has also been claimed that the local algae polymers can make waste bins, tableware, and shampoo bottles.

Industrial manufacturing processes affect the planet and contribute to global warming. So, using algae can greatly help by subtracting CO2 from the atmosphere– they can help the environment when used as a raw material in a healthy mode of production.

Moreover, several companies are interested in what they can produce using algae fibres. Some produce foam from them. The algae foam can then be used to make products, such as surfboards and shoes, with soles produced from petroleum.

Food

Climate change can, in no small way, affect agriculture and food supplies. They can increase rainfall variability, affecting livestock productivity and crop yields. From this, risks of malnutrition and hunger should be expected.

Algae is one of the solutions to this global climate crisis affecting the agricultural sector. They can offer valuable products. For instance, Arthrospira platensis (spirulina), a filamentous and multicellular blue-green alga, can be a food supplement.

Can food from algae help mitigate climate change? Yes, they can. In fact, they are excellent food supplements, biostimulants, bio fertilisers, biochar feedstocks, and livestock feeds. All these make algae one of the best ways to promote the climate resilience of food production and agricultural livelihoods. Besides, they help mitigate climate change by transforming greenhouse gasses into physical form or reducing their emissions.

Conclusion

Algae should be considered essential organisms within ecosystems, as their roles are invaluable. They are photosynthetic organisms that can help capture and store carbon and combat climate change– algae remove CO2 from the atmosphere and store it as biomass. They also put oxygen as a replacement.

Several companies have started to take advantage of these organisms’ benefits. You, as an individual, can also play your little part in helping the movement to keep the planet safe.

Do you ask how? You can plant a tree, help clean the ocean, see algae as a potential food source, buy algae-made products, work for companies that seek to keep the environment healthy for everyone, and so on. Through collective efforts, the problems of the world can be solved.

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Woody plants have different life forms according to their appearance and the nature of their growth: trees, shrubs, and bushes. Trees are plants that have one perennial stem called a trunk.

The thickness of trees is characterized by the diameter of the trunk, which for convenience is measured at the height of the human chest – 1.3 m from the ground and is expressed in centimeters. With the dying off of the trunk, the life of the tree ceases.

Shrubs – plants in which the main trunk is not expressed, and there are several trunks, going from the base (root neck).

In terms of size shrubs are subdivided into high – above 2.5 m, medium – 1-2.5 m and low – 0.5-1 m.

Representatives of shrubs – hazel forest, honeysuckle, currant, rakitnik, etc.

Structure. Woody plants are higher plants. All of them have leaves, a stem and roots. The stem of these plants is called the trunk and is covered by bark on the outside. The stem moves water and minerals from the roots to the leaves, and organic matter from the leaves to the roots. Some of these substances are deposited in the trunk. The top of the trunk branches off into twigs and shoots to form the crown. Leaves, buds, and flowers are found on annual and perennial shoots. The roots of a woody plant absorb water and nutrients from the soil, serve also as a place of deposition of spare organic substances and support for the entire plant. The place where the root passes to the stem is called the root neck, it is located at the very surface of the soil.

According to the nature of its structure, it can be stubby, taprooted, superficial and mixed. A corm-like root system has no main root, all of which are thin, like those of herbaceous plants, bunched up from the root neck. Such roots are characteristic of monocotyledonous plants: bamboos, palms, etc. The tap root system has a deep main root and thinner lateral roots. This root system is characteristic of oak, pine, larch. Surface root system is characterized by poorly developed tap root and thick lateral roots at the very surface of the soil. It is found in spruce, aspen, shrubs, and pine and larch growing in waterlogged and poor sandy soils. Tree species with a superficial root system are prone to wind-blown, that is, when a strong wind blows, they turn out together with their roots. Mixed root system consists of well-developed taproot and lateral roots (maple, linden, etc.).

The main mass of roots is concentrated in the most fertile upper meter layer of soil, deeper (up to 8-10 m) single roots penetrate.

Many woody plants have mycorrhiza (mushroom root) on their roots in the form of fungal threads covering the thin roots. Mycorrhiza is a phenomenon of symbiosis between a fungus and a plant.

On the roots of plants of the legume family (yellow acacia, rachnitz, etc.) nodules are formed as a result of the activity of nodule bacteria that assimilate atmospheric nitrogen, which becomes available to plants, which improves their nutrition.

Growth
Growing trees and shrubs are perennial plants. They increase their size each year and form new organs. Leaves, shoots, roots, flowers, and fruits are constantly renewed.

Growth in height is due to the formation of new shoots from apical buds at the ends of old shoots. If the apical bud dies, the central shoot grows from the nearest side bud. The shoots of some species take 10-12 days to grow (oak), others take a few weeks (poplar).

With the end of growth, an apical bud is formed. Sometimes second and third growth in height is observed in oaks.
The trunk, twigs and shoots of a tree consist of wood and bark. If you cut off the trunk at the neck of the root, you can tell the age of the tree by the number of annual rings of wood.

Longevity of tree species varies widely: from a few years (bamboo) to several hundreds or even thousands of years (sequoia). Longevity also varies within one species (breed) depending on internal and external reasons.

Reproduction of tree species occurs by seed and vegetative methods.

The main method is the seed method. The age at which fruiting begins is called the age of maturity. It depends on both the species characteristics of the plant and its living conditions. Tree species can bear fruit every year, but heavy harvests, or seed years, are said to be less frequent. It depends on how favorable conditions were during all stages of fruiting: from the establishment of flower buds to fruit ripening. Very often spring frosts and pests damage flowers and ovaries, destroying the harvest of seeds.

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Woody plants are classified in relation to heat as follows:

1. Quite cold-resistant, not at all damaged by low winter temperatures, tolerating frosts up to -45… -50°C, and some even lower; not damaged by late spring frosts – Siberian larch, Daurian larch, Siberian pine, Siberian spruce, common juniper, shivering poplar, downy birch, gray alder, Siberian mountain ash, willow, cottonwood.
2. cold-resistant, tolerating severe winters but damaged by very severe frosts (below -40°C). Some species are damaged by needles, others by resting buds. Some species of this group are damaged by late spring frosts. This group includes Siberian fir, Siberian linden, elm, maple, black poplar, white poplar.
3. Relatively heat-loving, with a longer vegetation period, as a result of which annual shoots do not always have time to become woody and are beaten by frosts partially or completely; all plants are severely damaged by very low winter temperatures; many of them are damaged by late-spring frosts. For example, Amur velvet, Manchurian walnut, and birchlet.
4. heat-loving, with even longer vegetation period, their shoots often do not mature and die from frost. During long severe frosts their above-ground parts of plants die completely, and their regeneration occurs from dormant buds at the root neck (pyramidal poplar, horse chestnut, walnut).
5. Very thermophilic, which absolutely cannot tolerate or poorly tolerate prolonged frosts up to -10 … -15°С. At such temperature during several days they either completely die, or are strongly damaged (cedar, eucalyptus, citrus).

In relation to moisture, all woody plants are divided into three main groups:

1. Hygrophytes – plants of humid habitats. They grow normally in conditions of excessive moisture. Plants demanding to water. This group includes many species of willows, poplars.
2. Mesophytes – growing well in sufficient moisture, but suffering from excess or lack of moisture, i.e. medium-demanding plants. Prolonged dryness of air and soil leads to partial forced leaf loss (when up to 50% of leaves turn yellow and fall off). These include birch, small-leaved linden.
3. Xerophytes – normally developing in arid conditions, undemanding to water, a small amount of moisture in the soil and in the air is enough for them. Some of them have very small leaves or have turned into scales (tamarix). Plants that live in conditions with a permanent seasonal deficit of moisture (common pine, narrow-leaved elk, prickly spruce).
   Different plants require different levels of light for normal growth. Some species can grow under the forest canopy, others need sun.

According to the degree of light-lovingness, woody plants are divided into the following groups:

1. Light-loving – plants that grow in open places and do not tolerate prolonged shade. They are characterized by leaves with small cell parenchyma, a large number of stomas and high chlorophyll content per leaf surface. This group includes larch, common pine, birch, pinnate elm, narrow-leaved elk, poplar (white, black, balsamic), white willow.
2. Medium light-loving species – juniper, apple tree, smooth elm, ash maple, Manchurian walnut, hawthorn, golden currant, Tatar honeysuckle, yarrow, spirea.
   Shade-tolerant plants are those which grow better in full light but can also tolerate shade. Their needles and leaves are darker, crowns are dense, less light penetration, the needles live 5-9 years (for light-loving trees 1-3 years), the lower limbs remain alive for a long time, trunks are slowly cleared of limbs, dying of oppressed trees is slower. According to the degree of increase in shade tolerance, conifers are in the following order: spruce, Siberian pine, fir; deciduous species: maple, linden, undergrowth shrubs.

Light-loving plants, like other ecological properties, is not a constant for a particular species: it changes with age. Sprouts are usually more shade tolerant than mature trees. On poor soils plants are more light-loving than on fertile soils. Light regime during the day is also important. When plants are introduced from areas with a short summer day to places with a long day, the latter develop abnormally, do not stop growing until the autumn cold and die from frost.

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The world of plants is vast and varied. Among its representatives living in water and on land are giants reaching 100 meters or more in height, and microscopic organisms, grasses and woody plants. The latter include trees, shrubs, lianas and other plant life forms whose main distinguishing feature is the presence of active cambium, which produces layers of secondary xylem (wood) in the roots and stems.

The woody flora of the globe includes more than 40 thousand species, most of which are distributed in tropical and subtropical areas.

In the process of evolutionary development and adaptation to changing growing conditions woody plants formed a large number of species that differ both in external structure and in their biological characteristics. To better understand this diversity of plants, it was necessary to systematize and classify them. These attempts were made a long time ago, the first one being in the 4th century B.C. by Theophrastus. The most complete system based on the morphological characteristics of plants was developed by Carl Linnaeus, who laid it out in 1758 in his book Species plantarum. He described and named more than 1,300 plant species. The basics of this classification are still used in botanical science today. However, the modern classification is based not only on morphology, but also on scientific data on plant anatomy, ecology, cytology, as well as biological, physiological and paleobotanical studies using methods of mathematical analysis. On this basis, all plants are divided into 2 groups: higher and lower.

The lower ones are mostly unicellular organisms or multicellular colonies without differentiation into organs and tissues; their reproduction process is very simplified.

Higher plants are plants with differentiation into main organs (root, stem, leaf) and tissues. In turn, higher plants are subdivided into 7 divisions, of which the gymnosperms and angiosperms, numbering over 240 thousand species, include all woody plants.

Each individual plant of a species acquires a number of traits in the process of evolution that distinguish it from other plants of the same species. These differences can be both hereditary, i.e. inherited, and non-hereditary. In the first case it is genotypic and in the second case it is phenotypic variability. For example, it is not uncommon to see trees with narrow crowns in dense stands, but their offspring growing in thinned stands will not always produce a narrow crown. If a number of specimens form a crown similar to the parental one, it is possible to speak of the inheritance of this trait with a certain degree of probability.

By selecting and breeding plants with positive deviations (larger flowers, fruits, original crown structure, beautiful shape and color of leaves, etc.), breeders expand and enrich the assortment of useful plants used by man.

Many forms and varieties of woody plants, which are superior to species-specific plants in terms of their valuable qualities for humans, do not always transfer them during seed propagation. For this reason, forms and varieties are usually propagated vegetatively: by grafts, cuttings, grafting, tissue culture; in this case all signs of the mother plant are preserved.

Tree plants are also classified according to the peculiarities of their structure, size, relation to the conditions of growth, as well as other features. According to the nature of the development of the trunk (stem), woody plants are represented by different life forms – trees, shrubs, semi-shrubs, shrubs. Trees – the trunk is clearly expressed. Shrubs – trunk is not expressed, branches develop from the base of the main axis, soon dying off. Semishrubs – plants with perennial, woody lower parts of shoots and annual, annually dying off their upper parts (raspberries). Shrubs are low (up to 50 cm) shrubs, usually completely wintering under the snow (cranberries, heather).

Of particular interest for landscaping works are climbing shrubs, unable to independently maintain an upright position, so-called lianas. They are characterized by long stems, which, being fixed, climb on supports.

Classify plants also depending on their height. Trees of the first magnitude, reaching more than 25 m (pine); of the second magnitude – 15-20 m (pear); of the third magnitude – 7-15 m (apple tree) and the niche, not exceeding 7 m (common juniper). Shrubs are divided into high – more than 2.5, medium – 2-2.5 and low – up to 1 m in height.

According to the intensity of growth, trees are distinguished: fast-growing – with an annual growth in height of more than 1 m (poplar), moderate growth – with an annual growth of 0.5-1 m (oak) and slow-growing with growth up to 0.5 m per year (boxwood).

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