Cyanobacteria

As explained by Dr. Janice Lawrence in her excellent webinar, cyanobacteria is an aquatic and photosynthetic bacteria present on earth for 3.5 billion years. They live in water, can produce their own food, and produced the oxygen in our atmosphere over billions of years. Cyanobacteria are sometimes called blue-green algae since they are aquatic and photosynthetic, but algae are plant-like organisms. The Province of New Brunswick Office of the Chief Medical Officer (Public Health) Blue-Green Algae web page has some good information on cyanobacteria. A great three minute video overview of cyanobacteria entitled “Cyanobacteria in New Brunswick” is worth watching. As the video indicates, only some forms of cyanobacteria are toxic. Use some of the resources identified here to learn how to identify the potentially dangerous forms of cyanobacteria. The ACAP Saint John Cyanobacteria web page has some very useful pictures showing the difference between cyanobacteria and algae, including a Visual Guide to Cyanobacteria.