Blue Green Bacteria

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Biological Environment > Blue Green Bacteria

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Bacteria which can photosynthesize - that is, they get their energy from sunlight. Also called cyanobacteria. Sometimes (wrongly) called blue-green algae.

Many blue-green bacteria can also "fix" atmospheric nitrogen. In Southeast Asia, nitrogen-fixing blue-greens often are grown in rice paddies, removing the need for nitrogen fertilizers.

Blue-greens are important in our story for several reasons:

they were probably the first bacteria which could perform photosynthesis, so leading to the great oxygen poisoning of 3 billion years ago
they formed a symbiosis with fungi to create lichen, which was probably the first living thing to live on land

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3 Billion Years ago

Biological Environment > Blue Green Bacteria

Basic Information