| Cross Index | Scytonema |
| SuperSet | Prokaryote, Eubacteria Oxygenic Phototrophic Bacteria |
| Compare | Cyanobacteria
Prochlorales Procloron didemni, Prochlorothrix hollandica |
| Contrast | Anoxygenic
Phototrophic Bacteria
Archaea |
| Subset |
| Morphology | Scytonema |
| CELLULAR |
| Staining | |
| Morphology | |
| Motility | motile |
| Specialized structures | .Trichomes are uniseriate and sheathed, with false branches double (geminate), sometimes multiple or single, meristematic region near apex). If Tolypothrix is included in Scytonema (eg. as a subgenus) or excluded, geminate false branching is absent or rare in that taxon. Cells may be longer or shorter than broad (Geitler, 1932; Desikachary, 1959; Bourrelly, 1985). In the reference strain, hormogonia are formed which have the same lateral dimensions as vegetative trichomes. When the period of motility ends, a single terminal heterocyst is formed before cell division and growth resumes (Rippka et al. 1979). |
| Division |
| COLONIAL |
| Solid surface | On agar-solidified medium, upright, aerial growth is conspicuous. Results of studies of Scytonema stuposum in nonaxenic, unicyanobacterial cultures showed that the degree of geminate, multiple or single false branching is positively related to heterocyst frequency and, therefore, inversely to the nutrient concentration (eg. combined nitrogen) of the medium (Jeeji-Bai 1976). The most typical Scytonema-like appearance occurred in the low-nutrient medium. False branching often occurred when immobile heterocysts appear to restrict further growth of the trichome, thus resulting in the bulging and breaking out of trichomes through the sheath |
| Liquid |
| Growth Parameters | Scytonema |
| PHYSIOLOGICAL |
| Tropism | chemoheterotroph |
| Oxygen | facultative aerobic |
| pH | |
| Temperature | |
| Requirements | |
| Products | |
| Enzymes | |
| Unique features | The reference strain
(cultured in BG-11 medium,) possesses phycoerythrocyanin
in addition to phy-cocyanin and allophycocyanin. grows in the dark on glucose, fructose or sucrose (Rippka et al. 1979).. |
| ENVIRONMENTAL |
| Habitat | subaerial (moist terrestrial), isolated from Crystal Cave, Bermuda, 1971 (see Rippka et al. 1979). |
| Lifestyle | |
| Pathogenicity |
| Distribution |
| Genome | Scytonema |
| G+C Mol % | of the reference strain is 44.4 (Herdman et al. 1979a). |
| The genome size is 7.40 x 109 daltons, the largest of all cyanobacteria tested, with the exception of some strains of Calothrix (Herdman et al. 1979b). |
| Reference | Scytonema |
| First citation | Agardh, C.A.1924. Systema Algarum. Litteris Berliningianis. Lund. Sweden, 312 pp |
| The Prokaryotes | |
| Bergey's Systematatic | p 1790 R.W. Castenholz |
| Bergey's Determinative | p 407 |
| References |