Zoospore

A zoospore , also known as a swarm spore , is a flagellated and therefore mobile spore that moves with flagella and resembles flagellates . Zoospores are the asexual reproductive units of many algae and some lower fungi, u. a. some types of slime and algae fungi .

The zoospores of the algae are motile and bare by two, by four, rarely by more flagella. H. without a cell wall . The flagella are often of unequal length. They often consist of a longer ciliated flagellum ( Mastigonema ) covered with cilia and a smooth, usually shorter dragline flagellum. They are formed in organs called zoosporangia. Zoospores can be haploid or diploid, the haploid are also called meiozoospore. In the genus Vaucheria ( yellow-green algae ), there are multinucleated zoospores, which are called synzoospore, they arise from the fact that the protoplast does not divide up during nuclear divisions. Some algae taxa alternatively produce a different type of spores, which are analogous to zoospores, but immobile and provided with a thick cell wall and which serve as permanent stages, these are called aplanospores. In some, like the green alga Ulothrix , two types of zoospores of different sizes (macrozoospores and microzoospores) are formed. Zoospores may contain functional, colored chloroplasts or they may be absent (e.g. brown algae). Zoospores can morphologically look very similar to the flagellated gametes of sexual reproduction; they are usually larger than them.

literature

• Hans Otto Schwantes: Biology of the mushrooms. An introduction to applied mycology (=  university paperbacks . Volume 1871 ). Ulmer, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-8252-1871-6 .
• Dinabandhu Sahoo, Joseph Seckbach (Ed.): The Algae World. Springer Verlag, Dordrecht etc., 2015. ISBN 978-94-017-7320-1 .