Skip to main content
 
Science Talk Archive

Exploring the science of plants, from the field to the lab

Lights! Camera! Algae!

Posted in Cool Scientist Tech on June 2, 2015 by Dario Cavaliere

Dario J. Cavaliere is a graduate student in the Commodore Mathew Perry Graduate Studies Program and a part-time research technician for the Cullman Program in Molecular Systematics at The New York Botanical Garden.

Nitella hyalina, freshwater algae

Meet Nitella hyalina, a freshwater alga with an especially unusual appearance. Elaborate whorls of branchlets and other three-dimensional structures make microscopic imaging of this species quite a challenge.

With advances in imaging software, N. hyalina has met its match. This software includes a stacking feature that allowed me to photograph the whole three-dimensional structure.

Check out those spiky bits! Those orange blobs are the plant’s reproductive structures, which are notoriously difficult to image. But now N. hyalina is ready for its close-up.